📣 Post by futurebird

2024-12-05

Forget "habitable super earths" how about a nice "mini earth?
Core of iron, more dense than earth, so it's smaller but has the same gravity. Then a crust like earth and atmosphere. I guess the atmosphere would need to be deeper to have enough pressure?
I wonder how small you could go?

futurebird

https://sauropods.win/@futurebird/113598051092014600

💬 Replies

2024-12-05 brezelradar ┃ 1🔗

@futurebird So basically Kerbin?
wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wi…

2024-12-05 isotopp ┃ 1💬

@futurebird
Hm. If we keep the size and use a denser core, bad things happen.
[…]

2024-12-05 IngaLovinde ┃ 1💬

@futurebird as one reference point, planet made of solid molten gold with the same gravity as Earth would be ~3x smaller.
But also, almost 63% of the planets in the solar system have gravity […]

2024-12-05 dgoldsmith

@futurebird No liquid core layer means no magnetosphere, which I believe means more problems with radiation. I seem to recall that leading to more rapid loss of atmosphere.

2024-12-05 nazokiyoubinbou

@futurebird What about moons instead? There's a lot of possibility for moons around gas giants perhaps. I recall in some story (I think something by Asimov?) there was a rogue star known as […]

2024-12-05 SeanPLynch ┃ 1🔗

@futurebird
I believe there's a published paper about that from the early 20th century...

2024-12-05 TerryHancock

@futurebird
I remember diving into this when I was young, for SF reasons.
It's a bit tricky because the ability to retain an atmosphere is actually a function of escape velocity, not surface […]

2024-12-05 michael_w_busch ┃ edited

@futurebird Below a third of an Earth mass or so; given that you want a surface that is warm enough for liquid water, it gets hard to simultaneously hold onto enough of an atmosphere to have […]

────

View thread

────

📡 Local feed

🏕️ Communities

🔥 Hashtags

🔎 Search posts

🔑 Sign in

📊 Status

🛟 Help