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Re:Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest su... by alistproducer2 on Thursday August 10, 2017 @01:54PM (#14982284)
I'm going to show my nerd colors here but having a thought like this has almost ruined Star Trek for me. For me I often think about atmospheric pressure. There's no way that beings from so many different planets could exist on a single star ship set at 1 Earth atmosphere.

Maybe someone knowledgeable in this space can tell me, but is a planet's atmospheric pressure reliably proportional to its mass?

Re:Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest su... by jamesjyu on Thursday August 10, 2017 @03:56PM (#14983510)
Yeah this is a lot of suspension of disbelief, but Star Trek has a bunch of those, so it's not so out of left field.

One common solution in SF novels is for aliens to be in an atmosphere suit, typically very high tech (thin and floating). In extreme cases, the suit would encase the whole body in gel fluid and also inject it into lungs and other orifices to withstand pressures from different gravities or ship acceleration.

In essence, you need a lot of tech to allow diverse aliens to spatially co-exist.

Edit: All of this ignores food. Typically, stories solve that with some kind of nano-replicator that can make any combination of chemicals safe for aliens to eat.

Re:Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest su... by 1001101 on Thursday August 10, 2017 @02:01PM (#14982365)
Venus is 90 bar, Mars is 6 mbar. Maybe not from N=3 in our solar system.

I feel you on Star Trek. It always kills me that 90% of species in the quadrant is a bipedal humanoid, although they did address this in "The Chase" (TNG:S6E20). But I digress.

Re:Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest su... by diminish on Thursday August 10, 2017 @02:28PM (#14982663)
Non bi-symmetric&quadrupedal animals usually make b-movies or enemies in horror genre. I am also interested in life forms in other quark/lepton/ muon sorts in the current universe if possible.

I m a firm believer that non-natural, non-random life forms will dominate the space exploration including robots, augmented humans, bio-robo hybrids and Supra and sub swarms of those.

Re:Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest su... by ashark on Thursday August 10, 2017 @02:03PM (#14982385)
> Maybe someone knowledgeable in this space can tell me, but is a planet's atmospheric pressure reliably proportional to its mass?

No. Proof: Venus/Earth.

Re:Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest su... by alistproducer2 on Thursday August 10, 2017 @02:53PM (#14982892)
I see. Thanks
Re:Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest su... by nonbel on Thursday August 10, 2017 @03:50PM (#14983457)
Re:Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest su... by Dylan16807 on Friday August 11, 2017 @01:54AM (#14986924)
Humans have a range of about .25 to 50 atmospheres of pressure, as long as you have the right amount of oxygen and not too much nitrogen.

So that particular aspect is not something to worry about.

Re:Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest su... by amag on Thursday August 10, 2017 @04:40PM (#14984003)
You put on your nerd goggles and that's what ruins Star Trek for you?