I was just reading this article and this sentence stood out.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49648746
“Water has been detected on other planets but they have been either too big or too hot to support life.”
The hot bit is obvious but how might a planet being too big affect its ability to support life?
In: Physics
I think this is probably just wrong.
I guess they mean “life as we know it” because what might theoretically the absolute limit for life in general is quite a hazy concept but probably very far from what we might imagine.
For life in theory you just need some energy gradient that enables a pattern to copy itself (imperfectly). Strictly speaking even chemistry is not a hard requirement for life, let alone organic chemistry.
To claim that a planet would be to big to support any sort of life is making a lot of unfounded assumptions and even our sort of life might be quite a bit more flexible than you would think.
Latest Answers