On 23 February the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences will be hosting a public lecture conducted by A-rated researcher and extraordinary professor, Prof Don Kurtz.

The topic of the lecture is “Venus – Earth’s Evil Twin”.

People often refer to Venus as the beautiful, bright “evening star”, but in fact it is a rocky planet that is a near twin to Earth in size.

“However, Venus is 30% closer to the Sun, and that makes all the difference,” says Prof Kurtz.

“If you could go to Venus and stand on the surface, you would be suffocated, fried, crushed, and dissolved. This is no place for life… or is it?” he asks.

He says astronomers reported the discovery of phosphine high in the atmosphere of Venus in 2021.

“There is no known way to produce phosphine in the conditions in Venus’s atmosphere, except by life. Could there be life floating in the atmosphere of Venus? What an exciting idea! But this is science. More recent reports have been unable to reproduce the discovery, so the jury is still out. Venus may be Earth’s ‘evil twin’, but its beauty makes it a memorable sight,” adds Prof Kurtz.

Get all the answers to these questions and learn more about this interesting planet at the lecture that will take place at 13:00 on 23 February 2023 at the Science Building on the NWU’s Mahikeng Campus. Please RSVP by sending an email to lerato.molebatsi@nwu.ac.za before or on 21 February 2023.

Prof Don Kurtz.