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QUESTION to an 11 year old girl: " "Q: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”" "(Pause)" "A: “Well, I think I want to dress up as a tree.”" "UK Channel 4 news, interviews during lockdown, 1-28-21 View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this second and last weekend on modular metabolism. This is a particularly insightful article on the topic and is worth a careful read. Even in the nonliving world, the laws of geometry and physics impose modularity and fractal repeats at different scales. Remember when you are flying over mountainous countryside and see periodicity in the watershed patterns? Or the repetitive circular motifs in astronomical bodies and motions? And so it goes on: modularity, it seems, is deeply embedded in Nature. View in LinkedIn

JUPITER, SATURN AND VENUS. “In contrast to planets like the Earth, Jupiter or Saturn, Venus does not have an intrinsic magnetic field and thus its atmosphere is not protected against the incoming solar wind. However, solar UV radiation ionizes the upper atmosphere creating an ionosphere which in turn interacts with the solar wind ions and the magnetic field carried by the solar wind.” https://lnkd.in/dVhpP9H View in LinkedIn

MERCURY. “In contrast to the other terrestrial planets Mercury does not have an atmosphere, but it has a relatively weak magnetic field. The strong solar UV radiation leads to photo-chemical escape of ions from Mercury's surface. Also solar wind protons can penetrate through the magnetospheric cusps and sputter ions off the surface. Due to the absence of an ionosphere no significant energy can be stored in the magnetosphere of Mercury such that solar wind disturbances will lead to short time deformations of the magnetosphere.” https://lnkd.in/dVhpP9H View in LinkedIn

MARS. “In the absence of an intrinsic dipole magnetic field, Mars' O+ planetary ions are accelerated by the solar wind. Because of their large gyroradius, a population of these planetary ions can precipitate back into Mars' upper atmosphere with enough energy to eject neutrals into space via collision. This process, referred to as sputtering, may have been a dominant atmospheric loss process during earlier stages of our Sun. “ https://lnkd.in/djesTG5 View in LinkedIn

“VENUS is the most dangerous planet in the solar system: its surface is at 393°C, hot enough to melt lead. It’s even hotter than the planet Mercury, which is closest to the Sun. Venus’ atmosphere is acidic and thick. Its clouds, which hide the surface from view, contain concentrated sulfuric acid — strong enough to dissolve most metals used to make spacecraft. The atmosphere is nearly as thick as liquid water because its surface pressure is extremely high — 93 times the pressure of Earth’s atmosphere.” https://lnkd.in/dAsAqH7 View in LinkedIn

“PLASMA is also quite common in our solar system and present in the interplanetary space or even trapped within the self-generated magnetic fields of several planets. Plasma in the interplanetary space originates primarily from the Sun from where it escapes due to its high pressure, forming the solar wind. The solar wind can interact with the magnetic fields of many planets.” https://lnkd.in/dVhpP9H View in LinkedIn