I keep getting awed by how weird stuff in space can be. And this is just the stuff we can see from here.
Astroboffins discover rapid 'electric winds' blowing on Venus
A team of planetary scientists has found that an 'electric wind' whisks away water in Venus' atmosphere, which explains why the terrestrial planet is so dry, according to new research published in Geophysical Research Letters. Venus, the second planet from the Sun, has a thick atmosphere surrounded by hazy clouds. It is the …
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Monday 20th June 2016 19:52 GMT Chris G
Bloody great battery
Considering the atmosphere in the upper levels consists of a large percentage of sulphuric acid and the 'snow observed in some photos seems to be lead sulphide, I would suggest that Venus is one planetary sized battery which may help to account for it's strong electric field.
Perhaps we could hook up to it and tow it into Earth's orbit around the sun, trailing behind us with a giant cable to supply us with power.
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Tuesday 21st June 2016 15:14 GMT John Gamble
Re: One for the Electric Universe
"One for the Electric Universe crowd."
What?
[performs web search]
Oh good grief. I note that the originator and the primary advocates are people who are working outside their specialty, which is not irrevocably damaging in and of itself, but it's not a good sign either.
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Monday 20th June 2016 20:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Venus did harbor water... but it was boiled away as its surface temp rose to 470 deg
Interesting stuff... Sometimes I feel this is where the earth is going (causes of climate change aside). It makes me question why so many people flock to places like Dubai to buy apartments etc. Am I just heat sensitive or is this plain nuts? Some scientists are saying parts of the ME will be uninhabitable by 2050...
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Monday 20th June 2016 22:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Venus did harbor water... but it was boiled away as its surface temp rose to 470 deg
Ridiculous. A few degrees warmer doesn't equate to "uninhabitable" considering many consider it quite habitable now. Or is someone now making ridiculous predictions of a 10 or 20 degree rise in 34 years?
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Monday 20th June 2016 23:57 GMT hattivat
Re: Venus did harbor water... but it was boiled away as its surface temp rose to 470 deg
The only thing that makes it habitable for most of these people is air conditioning (and opulent salaries, obviously). At the beginning of the 20th century, only 25 000 people found Quatar habitable enough to live there, whereas today the population is at 2.5 million, a 100-fold increase. I've been to Dubai in summer and everything seemed to be geared towards eliminating any exposure to outside air, with people shuttling in air-conditioned cars from their air-conditioned houses to their air-conditioned parking spots underneath their air-conditioned offices. Now I know that sounds a lot like what many people in the West are doing, but in the Gulf they take it to a whole new level - even their bus stops are all air-conditioned, and before the global recession put an end to the worst excesses, there were serious plans to create a refrigerated beach in Dubai. Yes, seriously.
You're right that a few degrees warmer won't make much difference to the air conditioners, though.
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Tuesday 21st June 2016 00:07 GMT vir
Re: Venus did harbor water... but it was boiled away as its surface temp rose to 470 deg
They're already bumping up against uninhabitable during heat waves. The big milestone is a wet-bulb temperature of 35C, above which sweating is ineffective, making it lethal in less than 6 hours. Some places have already come very close to this. With a projected 4-degree rise in 100 years, many places in the region would regularly have heat waves (plus extra humidity) exceeding this temperature and "normal" temperatures would be rather close. Here's an article:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/26/extreme-heatwaves-could-push-gulf-climate-beyond-human-endurance-study-shows
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Tuesday 21st June 2016 15:03 GMT Ogi
Re: Venus did harbor water... but it was boiled away as its surface temp rose to 470 deg
The earth is going in that direction regardless of what we are doing. As the sun ages (on its way to a red giant) it will swell up, increasing surface temperatures on earth until we end up looking like Mercury (and may be eventually absorbed by the sun).
Of course, this is on phenomenal time scales, so we will not notice the gradual temp increase ourselves.
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Wednesday 22nd June 2016 18:05 GMT Uffish
Re: Planetary electric field?
First, it's current that produces magnetic fields not voltage. I suppose you could nevertheless get a reasonable current flowing, somehow.
Second, varying magnetic fields induce voltages/currents in conductors including any ionized parts of the atmosphere and, I suppose, the core of Mars which used to produce a magnetic field before it stopped. You may or may not want to include some form of current stabilisation.
Third. That's it really, nothing to it, good luck with the build ! (Less sarcastically, I believe such a project to be permanently ruled out on cost / benefit grounds).
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
