r/interestingasfuck • u/howimetyourcakeshop • 10h ago

Our moon being formed.

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u/daou0782 8h ago

And do you know there’s a very narrow window where planets have the right mass/density to allow for escape velocity?

So maybe larger worlds are more habitable but life on it is trapped in their gravity wells. And lighter planets don’t normally have cores large enough to allow for magnetic fields strong enough to protect their atmospheres.

Truly a rare earth.

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u/hikerguy555 7h ago

Wait what. What do you mean "allow" for escape v? Like if the planet had more gravity couldn't it be escaped with more force? Is it because the curvature also increases (decreases?)? I'd still feel like saying it'd be impossible for life to escape it doesn't feel right while simultaneously acknowledging that science doesn't care what "feels right"

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u/EscapeTrajectory 6h ago

If the Earth was a little bigger it would be very difficult if not impossible to go to orbit with chemical rockets. Then you would need something like nuclear rockets or magnetic rail launch systems but those are still pretty sci fi so the question is if a species on such a planet would ever discover space flight

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u/hikerguy555 6h ago

Right, so that's what I figured was meant. Our current technology wouldn't be able to do a task it wasn't designed for...fortunately despite not needing to solve that issue ourselves, we still have come up with ideas that would work though haven't actually created them. It seems absurd to think a technologically advanced society wouldn't be able to add a little oomph to their rockets above where we are now if you gave them a couple hundred years, especially if their society valued science unlike ours