r/interestingasfuck • u/howimetyourcakeshop • 9h ago

Our moon being formed.

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u/daou0782 7h 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/ShaggyCan 7h ago

I'm pretty sure it's in Asimov's Foundation series where a character is actively looking for Earth, which has long been abandoned and lost, and the character sees Earth's statistics ie moons, size, density etc and exclaims that there is no such planet, no planet that small has a moon that big etc. it very much highlights how rare our planet could be.

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u/Your_New_Overlord 5h ago

Rare, yes, but with billions of solar systems there’s still a hell of a lot of others just like us.

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u/zindorsky 3h ago

Maybe. We don’t actually know the probabilities involved. What if they’re 1 in a quadrillion?

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u/traevyn 2h ago

One in a quadrillion in the entire universe is still at LEAST a few of them

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u/Your_New_Overlord 1h ago

Two sentient lifeforms are never going to meet each other, so what’s the difference? It’s just a nice thought that we’re not alone.