Re:Starship Update
by api on Saturday September 28, 2019 @10:12PM
(#21104551)
This is a possible Fermi paradox answer, or at least factor. Maybe the vast majority of habitable worlds are larger than Earth. The inhabitants of those worlds might find space flight too hard or even impossible. They also might have less interest in it since they would make the natural anthropic assumption that worlds capable of supporting life are probably huge like theirs.
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That really makes a lot of sense. Because planets smaller than Earth cool a lot faster, so they lose their molten core and plate tectonics (which keeps land mass rising and out of the water), and also a magnetic shield that keeps the atmosphere from stripping away (like Mars).
Re:Starship Update
by JohnJamesRambo on Saturday September 28, 2019 @11:32PM
(#21104871)
I'm going to be hopeful and optimistic and point out that the large planets in our solar system aren't rocky and suitable for life as we know it anyway. Earth is the biggest one and the rest are gas planets. Maybe planets that harbor life (rocky, liquid water, goldilocks zone closer to the sun) usually have low enough gravity for aliens to escape it.
This diagram has some exoplanets on it for size comparison- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstellar_habitable_zone#/...