What if Earth Were Twice as Big?

[Will E Worm]

What if Earth Were Twice as Big?
By Adam Hadhazy, Life's Little Mysteries Contributor

During the new DC Comics Universe series "Flashpoint," in which a time-traveling supervillain alters the past to warp the present, Life's Little Mysteries presents a 10-part series that examines what would happen if a major event in the history of the universe had gone just slightly different.

What if ... Earth were twice as big?

If Earth's diameter were doubled to about 16,000 miles, the planet's mass would increase eight times, and the force of gravity on the planet would be twice as strong.

Life would be: Built and proportioned differently.

If gravity were twice as strong, bodies possessing the same construction and mass as our flora and fauna would weigh twice as much and would collapse. It'd be "timber!" for tall, thick trees such as redwoods. Large, sunward-reaching plants might still develop, but would require stiffer architectures of cellulose fibers or another material altogether.

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[squallumz]

i always think about that stuff.

my favourite big time gravity effect is how hydrogen is a fucking metal on jupiter.

once upon a time, astronomy was my life.

 

[tiger1977]

F=(Gm1m2)/r^2

That would change everything about us. Plus, Earth would probably have another moon or 2.

 

[CunningStunts]

It's fascinating that if things were slightly different, the fragile existence we know would be vastly altered, or gone altogether.

Did you also know that if earth didn't have a moon, many organisms would not exist?

 

[PlasmaTwa2]

If the world were twice as big, getting around Russia would be a bitch.

 

[zdenka]

People would be really fat and wide. Plus they can't jump

 

[PlasmaTwa2]

People would be really fat and wide. Plus they can't jump

So they'd be white Americans?

 

[SabrinaDeep]

No offense, but if i had wheels i'd be a car. If earth was twice as big we wouldn't be here at all or we'd have a different mass/structure.

 

[Bearded_Menace]

People would be really fat and wide. Plus they can't jump

I doubt people would be "fat" so to speak. They might be bulkier, but probably not fat since fat functions primarily as an energy reserve and doesn't do anything in terms of mobility. Hence why one only needs to sit on their ass for a while in order to accumulate fat. The average person would probably be a bit shorter but a tad bit more broad and carrying an extra amount of muscle. As a result of the extra muscle, they would probably be able to jump just fine.

 

[LukeEl]

Then there would be plenty of room for Liam Nieson's cock then.

 

[squallumz]

Then there would be plenty of room for Liam Nieson's cock then.

:why: :eeew: :1orglaugh

 

[Rey C.]

No offense, but if i had wheels i'd be a car.

But at least then, this thread about the guy who claims to have had sex with 1000+ cars would be a little less creepy.

(In my Barbara Walters voice) And say, if you were a car, what kind of car would you be? And where would your horn button be? *beep beep*

 

[Rane1071]

An interesting question. Especially considering how lucky Earth is... Just the right size/mass for a hot iron core and magnetic field. Just the right distance from the Sun (the so-called Goldilocks zone) to allow liquid water on the surface. A stable satelite (the Moon) to stabilize the Earth's rotation and an off-set alignment to allow seasonal change. .. Now that's lucky.

 

[mr. jizz]

People would be really fat and wide. Plus they can't jump

We wouldn't necessarily be "fat" but we would indeed be wide. Astrobiologists predict that if there is life on other planets that have a larger mass than the earth, they would most likely be wider than they are tall, their legs would be shorter and overall, their center of mass would be lower to the ground, much like a tortoise or something of that nature, so we'd most likely have to walk on all fours or be extremely short.

Anyway, I'd never really thought how it would be to live on such a massive Earth, I'd always thought it be more fun to live on a planet 1/2 the size of earth, the effect of gravity on freefall is not 9.81 m/s, but rather, you fall much slower and would jump much higher, that would be cool. I'd always thought it'd be cool if Earth were in a binary type solar system too. Can you imagine how much having two stars would change our lives? Or even just mankind and nature in general.

EDIT: ooops didnt see what BM had posted before I posted, but yeah pretty much what he said...

I doubt people would be "fat" so to speak. They might be bulkier, but probably not fat since fat functions primarily as an energy reserve and doesn't do anything in terms of mobility. Hence why one only needs to sit on their ass for a while in order to accumulate fat. The average person would probably be a bit shorter but a tad bit more broad and carrying an extra amount of muscle. As a result of the extra muscle, they would probably be able to jump just fine.

 

[zdenka]

So they'd be white Americans?

More like Samoans :1orglaugh

 

[Atar554]

Chairs would be really sturdy and cars would require more brake replacements.

oh and evolution might not have happened.

 

[D-rock]

F=(Gm1m2)/r^2

That would change everything about us. Plus, Earth would probably have another moon or 2.

Unless they are small relatively temporary ones like Mars has I think that would be unlikely especially if any moons we would have in that situation would form from the mechanism that we think the one we have now formed.

 

[ralph furley]

we'd still be Jupiter's bitch

 

[Rane1071]

we'd still be Jupiter's bitch

True. Jupiter's the bad-boy of this solar system. However Jupiter does/has saved us from a lot of stray comets and asteroids.

 

[STDiva]

True. Jupiter's the bad-boy of this solar system. However Jupiter does/has saved us from a lot of stray comets and asteroids.

Jupiter saved me from seeing Gigli. I saw From Justin To Kelly instead