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how small could a planet be!?
So now that Star R136a1 has been found and proven scientists that stars can and are alot larger than what they believed. Could the same be applied to planets. Earth is a relativly small planet compared to other known planets. But could there possibly be planets that are so small that earth is the size of R136a1 that we could be a race of gigantic beings and there are tiny planets supporting microscopic size beings! kind of hurts my head just thinking about it but could it really be possible? I mean micoscopic organsism do exisit I understand that but could there be an advance race of tiny people living on tiny planets that we just cant see becuase they are just to small!
7 Answers
- Mr. ImmortelLv 78 years agoFavourite answer
A planet is an astronomical object orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighboring region of planetesimals. The size and mass minimum of a planet is not exactly known. The smallest mass of a planet may be about 0.000 2 the mass of the earth and about .08 of the diameter of the earth.
Source(s): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet - ?Lv 78 years ago
You're not going to start talking about atoms being like solar systems, are you? Because they covered that on in "Animal House". And tiny spacemen have been around as long as science fiction, and I'll bet you could also turn up an old episode of the Twilight Zone on that topic.
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Earth is actually the largest of our four terrestrial planets (and of course bigger than any dwarf planet or asteroid), but yes, small compared to the gas giants or to any of the extrasolar planets we have discovered thusfar. That is in large part due to the relative crudeness of our current tools--once we get better instruments we will likely begin discovering more smaller planets.
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As we learned with Pluto, what constitutes a 'planet' depends on how it is defined. The tiny worlds you are describing are what we would call an asteroid here, and not even a self-rounding one at that, and certainly wouldn't merit designation as a planet except in Tinyland. It wouldn't be able to hold an atmosphere, and so it's very unlikely to be inhabited at all, tiny creatures or not, complex or not. So quit thinking about it, and your head should quit hurting. If not, take an aspirin and call me in the morning.
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- Anonymous8 years ago
The main prerequisite of planethood is is hydrostatic equilibrium, and the average object in this state is less than 1000 km in diameter, while Earth is over 12000 km.
Earth is far above average, and that REALLY says something about the gas giants.
- 8 years ago
As long as the planet has a core and has sufficient mass density , it can be even as small as a football..
Source(s): _ - 8 years ago
A planet is technically anything with a set orbital path around a star, I think.
So technically a spec of dust COULD be a planet, it it maintained it's orbit, and wasn't eventually disintegrated by other celestial bodies and such.
- Anonymous8 years ago
Oh, excuuuuuuuse meeeeeeeeeeeeeee
