Aliens Could be Trapped on Super-Earth Due to Gravitational Pull
According to new research, Super-Earth, which are giant-size versions of Earth are more habitable to them than Earth.
Aliens living on different planets could be trapped there due to gravity. According to new research, Super-Earth, which are giant-size versions of Earth are more habitable to them than Earth. Scientists found out that it would be to difficult to launch a rocket from a super-Earth due to the gravitational pull.
The study said, to launch a rocket equivalent of an Apollo moon mission on a super-Earth, it would need to have a mass of about 440,000 tons (400,000 metric tons), for fuel requirements, which is the order of the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.
Talking about the research, author Michael Hippke, an independent researcher affiliated with the Sonneberg Observatory in Germany told Space.com, "On more-massive planets, spaceflight would be exponentially more expensive. Such civilisations would not have satellite TV, a moon mission or a Hubble Space Telescope."
He also said, "The researcher said that aliens living on super-Earths would require rockets which do not use chemical fuel to go to space. This makes space-flight on these worlds very challenging because the fuel mass for a given payload is an exponential function of planetary surface gravity."
He added saying, "On more-massive planets, spaceflight would be exponentially more expensive. Such civilisations would not have satellite TV, a moon mission or a Hubble Space Telescope."
To see how difficult it might be for super-Earthlings to launch a conventional rocket, Hippke said that rocket sizes needed to escape a super-Earth was 70 percent wider than our planet and 10 times bigger. Those are roughly the specs of the alien planet Kepler-20b, which lies about 950 light-years from Earth. The escape velocity there would be about 2.4 times greater than on Earth.
If life evolved on a distant super-Earth, such aliens could have developed an advanced civilisation capable of spaceflight. However, Hippke in the study says that the strong gravitational pull of such planets could also make it quite difficult for extraterrestrials to conduct a task.
Earlier studies had suggested that Earth-like world are quite suitable for alien existence. Super-Earths, researchers have suggested, might be "super-habitable." Their greater mass gives them stronger gravitational pulls thus able to hold thicker atmospheres to better shield life from harmful cosmic rays.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 25, 2018 09:06 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).