The Evening Star-Venus.

Anybody who has looked up into the western sky after sunset in the past month will have noticed a brilliant white object - the planet Venus,  sometimes called the Evening Star. It is brighter than any other planet and ten times brighter than the brightest star Sirius. The "Evening Star" Venus next to the Moon… Continue reading The Evening Star-Venus.

Giving Venus an artificial magnetic field

As discussed in a previous post, in the far future humanity may decide to terraform Venus so that the planet has a similar temperature and atmosphere to that which currently exists on the Earth. However, the lack of a global magnetic field would cause significant obstacles to humans settling on Venus. Without this protective shield inhabitants would be exposed to the… Continue reading Giving Venus an artificial magnetic field

The Earth’s magnetic field

The Earth is unique among the inner planets in our Solar System (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) in that it has a strong magnetic field. It is this invisible field which causes the needle of a compass to point North that has been used by navigators for centuries and is used by migrating birds and some land… Continue reading The Earth’s magnetic field

Terraforming Venus

Terraforming is the process of changing the global environment of a planet  in such a way as to make it suitable for human habitation. Because it is so far beyond our current technological capabilities, most articles about terraforming have been written by science fiction writers rather than scientists.  For example, there is  an entry for a terraformed… Continue reading Terraforming Venus

Living on Venus

In this post I'll look into the distant future and talk about humans living and building settlements on the planet Venus. Because it is well beyond what we can achieve with our current technology, it is a topic that been more in the realm of science fiction rather than factual scientific writing. However, even though there are many difficult obstacles in… Continue reading Living on Venus