In article ,
a425couple wrote:
>"Naraht" wrote in message...
>> This is more sort of a research question.
>> -------- how large or
>> small can the planet be to be habitable by humans?
>> Any ideas where to look for info on this?
>
>Well, my first idea is to ask on the newsgroup -
>alt.astronomy
sci.astronomy, surely?
>Not necessarily the "best" idea, but the "first".
>Be prepared to do some thinking, and research
>in picking through a variety of types of answers
>(separating wheat from chaff).
>
>How do I explain?? Visiting that newsgroup can
>make one happy at the level of discussion present
>on this newsgroup.
What a nice way to say "it's overrun with tin-foil hat types
foaming at the mouth at the injustice of the world for
not lauding them." Even one of the sci.space.* groups
would be better.
You can get a rough idea about the necessary size range for
habitable worlds by looking around the solar system: 10%
of Earth's mass seems to be too small, judging by Mars,
but ten times (well, 14) is clearly too big to avoid having
an annoyingly large amount of atmosphere [1].
The OP could start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_habitability
Usual wikipedia disclaimer applies.
1: Although there's a model that says if a Neptune-like world
ends up in the habitable zone of a star, it loses the esxcess
H2 and what you get is a massive but not very dense ocean-world,
potentially habitable if the ice-whatever at the bottom of the
deep deep ocean doesn't seal off access to nutrients.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs) |
