why a planet would be too large to support life

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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

7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Gas giant planets can have water, but life as we know it can’t live on a gas giant planet (at least not as far as we know). Gas giant planets don’t have a well-defined surface, so it’s hard to imagine a lot of kinds of terrestrial life living on them.

On the other hand, somebody in 1989 would have said it was hard to imagine a gas giant planet orbiting its parent star in a few days. And yet, we’ve found many such planets.

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