Annotations, Ch 7
“Yesli mui tak po’yedem, mimo... vot... b’udet shestdesyat chasov, hotya...”
«Если мы так поедем мимо... вот... будеть 16 часов. Хотя...»
“If we go this way, through... right... it'll be 16 hours. Although...”
Magnetic field of planets-
Remember the bar magnets you played with as a kid? The magnetic field is the “force field” generated by the magnet. It always has two opposite polarities, North and South i.e. you will never find a magnet that’s only North or only South. It’s kind of impossible.
Earth has a magnetic field surrounding the planet, generated by the planet itself, so we can actually kind of conceptualize of Earth as a giant magnet. This magnetic field is a wonderful thing-it’s how traditional compasses work, it gives us the Aurora Borealis, it’s the reason why the solar wind hasn’t stripped away our atmosphere (see Mars). It’s also known to reverse its polarity, that is magnetic North changes to magnetic South and vice versa, about every 250,000 years. We still don’t know how Earth’s magnetic field switches polarities. There are a few theories out there, but none of them are conclusive. All we know is that it has changed polarities periodically over the span of geologic time. Actually, we’re way overdue for a reversal, since the last one is believed to have occurred about 780,000 years ago.
Not all planets have magnetic fields, and the strength of these magnetic fields varies with each planet. Earth has a strong magnetic field, Jupiter’s is enormous, Mars’ is weak, Venus is almost nonexistent.
The point is, the situation with this planet is mostly me playing around with theories in geology.