What if the Earth was as big as Jupiter?

M

Michael83

Registered Member
Assuming the geology of the Earth is the same, but the size was as big as Jupiter, and the world population was the same as it is now.

What do you think would be the effects on society?

Would we, in 2008, still have unexplored areas of wilderness left in the Earth?

Would there be vast areas of land uninhabited?

Would our industrial activities not be enough to harm the environment?

This question always intrigued me.
 
we would not be alive...but even if we assume that life did develop and humans were there...our muscles would be many time bigger than now. I really dont think evolution for men would have been plausible.
 
Jupiter Earth-like man

muscleMan.jpg
 
if earth was the size of jupitor we wouldnt be breathing hydrogen for starters because at that size the earth could retain hydrogen. Also im assuming your saying that the earths rock is the size of jupitor we would have a HUGE atmosphere, and we probably would never have developed any sort of space exploration because of the weight difference.
 
Michael83 said:
Assuming the geology of the Earth is the same, but the size was as big as Jupiter, and the world population was the same as it is now.

What do you think would be the effects on society?

Would we, in 2008, still have unexplored areas of wilderness left in the Earth?

Would there be vast areas of land uninhabited?

Would our industrial activities not be enough to harm the environment?

This question always intrigued me.
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I have to agree with you it is very interesting, the earths magnetic feild is as bigger than jupiter, if we filled it with gases the earth would look just like jupiter:

there is always the chance that inside all of that gas on jupiter that there is a planet just like earth or at least the same size.

DwayneD.L.Rabon
 
draqon said:
we would not be alive...but even if we assume that life did develop and humans were there...our muscles would be many time bigger than now. I really dont think evolution for men would have been plausible.
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How would our muscles be bigger or the size of humans in general?

I'm not following that one.

My assumption is just that Earth is the size of Jupiter, but everythign else (composition) is the same as Earth. Or are you saying it's not possible?

I do not see why would could not have a Jupiter sized Earth with the same atmosphere and same level of gravity.
 
err because an increase in mass increases gravity therefor changes the composition of atmospheare
 
DwayneD.L.Rabon said:
there is always the chance that inside all of that gas on jupiter that there is a planet just like earth or at least the same size.
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To find this for sure, our probe has to be filled with liquid and all instruments must operate inside a liquid filled system so as not be be crushed by the high gravity environment...
 
Michael83 said:
...I do not see why would could not have a Jupiter sized Earth with the same atmosphere and same level of gravity.
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We could but it would be only a hollow shell. This is because to have the same "1G" surface gravity the Earth's mass would need to be larger by (Rj/Re)^2 and of course the surface area is also larger by that same ratio. With this larger surface to cover, there would need to be that same ratio (nearly so) of Oxygen and Nitrogen more to give the same "1 atmosphere" pressure we have now.

I don't want to take trouble to do it correctly, but think, without much consideration, the thickness of the shell would be approximately the same thickness as Re, Earth's current radius. (Thus you could still dig deep mines etc.) If it were mainly solid iron on the inside surface, not the liquid iron of Earths core, perhaps it would be strong enough to not collapse, even if only the same quantity of iron as in Earth's current core existed. (A well formed, symetric, iron shell would be quite strong against collapse.) Don't forget to magnetize this iron or else we die from solar radiation (We still need the deflection of those energetic particles around the "Big Earth.")

There have been some suggestions that advanced civilization might have actually enlarged their planet like this, to provide more living space etc., but I think they would have learned how to stabily control their populations instead, if they were capable of such a restructuring of their planet. Some really wild speculators have even suggested we look for IR "stars" - I.e. very advanced civilizations that have completel surounded their sun and live on the inside surface (where the sunlight is) but the outside surface must radiate the same flux so it is only IR from a much larger surface than their sun's surface.
 
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As big as? Sure, we could still be there.

You guys are forgetting size and density. Earth could be as big as Jupiter and we could still be healthy and the same, just not as DENSE as Jupiter (densite affects gravity, not size)

What I really wish is that Earth had rings around it......
 
Norsefire said:
...You guys are forgetting size and density. Earth could be as big as Jupiter and we could still be healthy and the same, just not as DENSE as Jupiter...
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No you are forgetting the structrual strength requirements. "Big Earth" is possible, but only by the way I state in post 10. I suspect you also fail to realize that Big Earth must be much more massive to have "1G" surface gravity.
 
You guys all missed the OP's point. This is a sociological/historical question and not a physics one. Thus IMAGINE that everything is the same, but the size is the Jupiter's. If you can't don't answer the question. For help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jupiter-Earth-Spot_comparison.jpg

OK, I finally got the math part. Since Jupiter's radius is 11.2 times bigger than Earth's, its surface area is app. 1405 times bigger! So use that data in your imagination!!!

(Wikipedia says 1317, I got 1405 = 11.2 x 11.2 x 11.2)

Edit: That is the volume difference, the surface is only 122 times bigger than Earth's.
 
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well than lets see...there would be much more land...perhaps discovering that this terra-Jupiter is actually round, would be taking forever if perhaps never. Whats most I am sure there would be bigger religious motivations, people would see their planet as the only one to exist for it would seem infinite to them. There woluld be more diversity thou...fractions of humans would be trying to fight for their rights in the old age when another fraction on other side of the planet might be in electronic age by than...
 
Since most modern wars were fought over natural resources, I assume the world wars of Jupiter would come much later. Technology could have advanced :

-slower because people have more living room
-faster because there are more people thus more discoveries

I would say we would know all about Jupiter's land and islands, but there would be plenty of uninhabited parts. Imagine an ICBM needs 2-3 hours to reach their target here on Earth, there it could be 20+ hours, thus plenty of time to prepare for a nuclear attack.

Also because of the much larger size, we wouldn't need to worry about peak oil or such, although we have to assume that population will eventually explode there too. If the Earth comfortable carrying capacity is 6-9 billion, on Jupiter this would be 500 billion easily!

Size generally slows down things, but eventually the exponential growth of everything (discoveries,population, use of land and nat. resources) catches up.
It is safe to say there would be bigger technological differences, like one part living in the XX century, the other one still in the stoneage or before....

Assuming that the size protects from one giant tidal wave messing up all coastline life or the dinosauruses, there could be different lifeforms developing/surviving parallel. Imagine if a Jupiter oceancrossing would take 10 times more than on Earth! What are the chances Colombus would have survived it? Thus it would be probable that new continents were discovered as late as the mid-XX century. (probably by satelites not by planes!)
 
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With that size we would be exploring new continents by spacetravel. Imagine we balloon Earth up by 1400 times! (making the surface 122 times bigger) The west coast of America would be reached only by the 21st century where happy native Americans still live in tippies. Actually, the conquest of Jupiter-America probably hasn't happened yet....

here is one interesting difference: Because of the huge distance, coal and oiltransportation wouldn't be worthy between continents, because you would waste more energy than you would be transporting. (this is already the situation with coal on Earth)
 
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Juptier should have a physcial diameter of 24,000 miles, giving a radius of 12,000 miles, with a atmosphere of thick ness of about 32,000 miles.
So the physcial surface area would be 1,808,640,000 square miles, which would be 9.1688 times larger than the surafce of earth.

DwayneD.L.Rabon
 
DwayneD.L.Rabon said:
which would be 9.1688 times larger than the surafce of earth.
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No need to reinvent the wheel:

Physical characteristics:
Equatorial radius: 71,492 ± 4 km
11.209 Earths
Polar radius: 66,854 ± 10 km
10.517 Earths
Flattening: 0.06487 ± 0.00015
Surface area: 6.21796×1010 km²
121.9 Earths
Volume: 1.43128×1015 km³
1321.3 Earths

OK, I just caught myself making a mistake. The surface area is only 122 times bigger than Earth's I was looking at the volume when I got the 1300-1400 multiplier. My bad.
 
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