Living in a denser atmosphere

[sailorhathor]

This relates to my last question, which was here.

I believe I have settled on a planet for my human-like aliens to come from - Tau Ceti f. This choice brings up a whole new set of questions based on this information:

Assuming that Tau Ceti f is a terrestrial planet, it would likely be at least 2.3 times larger in size than the Earth. Assuming an

Comments

[doccy]

If it helps - there's 3 articles on the xkcd what if? website (the first one's more helpful than the second or third, but I've added them because they relate). Because this group marks posts with links as spam, I'm just giving you the article number for each one.

Expanding Earth - no. 67
To save you time, I did a little math: 1 month is approx. 0.4% increase in radius, so a 130% increase would take about 27 years - so making the assumptions there, you'd be looking at somewhere between 10 years and 40 years on the scale.

Interplanetary Cessna - no. 30
Just including this for the comparisons of different levels of gravity.

Lunar Swimming - no. 124
...and this one's in because it's awesome. And, also, because I think it might help coming from the other side - if swimming in lower gravity is that awesome, higher gravity would surely be a pain.

[sailorhathor]

Thank you! I'm researching other planetary possibilities because the gravity seems like it's going to be more trouble than it's worth. There's always something with these alien planets. :P :D

[marycatelli]

It's not just the density. It's how well the gases act as greenhouse gases.

[sailorhathor]

Thank you! I'm researching other planetary possibilities because the gravity seems like it's going to be more trouble than it's worth. There's always something with these alien planets. :P :D The greenhouse gases turned out to be the easy part.

[beccastareyes]

The no land, all water thing comes from this

[sailorhathor]

Thank you! I'm researching other planetary possibilities because the gravity seems like it's going to be more trouble than it's worth. There's always something with these alien planets. :P :D

[beccastareyes]

Keep in mind, that we've only just barely got the ability to see Earth-sized planets*, so unless there's a planet already there, you can probably assume one is possible.

* As in, you need exactly the right star, the right telescope, and the right alignment to see one, while for Jupiter-sized planets we can see those easily unless conditions are wrong (a star that's active or the wrong alignment of a planet.)