Name: What If The Earth Were Twice As Big?
Uploaded: 2024-07-05T21:01:20.000Z
Duration: 2 min 45 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

We live in a part of the solar system called the Goldilocks zone, where it's not too hot that all the water evaporates away, but it's also not too cold where it freezes instead.

And unless you're an astronaut, the big spherical rock will be your home for life.

What if in a split second the earth doubled in size?

Let's assume that the density remains constant.

So the mass of the earth increased as well.

Well, first off, gravity would be very different.

The earth would have eight times as much mass and gravity would be twice as strong.

So if you stepped on a scale you'd suddenly weigh twice as much as before, it would be much harder for you to walk and you get tired much more easily.

After all, you'd feel like you were giving another version of yourself a piggyback ride all day every day, which would look very funny.

Over the years, human bones, especially in the legs, would have to become stronger to support this increased weight.

Meanwhile, trees would start to collapse and any new trees that grow in their place might not grow as tall.

See, there's a limit for how tall a tree can grow, usually around 400 ft or so.

This limit is determined by gravity since the taller the tree is, the more energy is required to transport water from the roots to the top.

If the amount of energy the tree gains from photosynthesis is more than the energy it takes to transport the water, it'll keep growing; otherwise, it'll stop.

So if the earth suddenly got twice as big, trees like the California redwood may not be as impressive.

Luckily, even though the gravitational pull of the earth will be stronger, it still won't be enough to break the moon apart.

See, in order for that to happen, the moon would have to be within the Earth's Roche limit.

This is the minimum distance the moon can approach the earth without being torn apart by tidal forces.

This happens because the near side of the moon is pulled in harder than the far side.

When the moon gets close enough to the earth, the gravity holding it together is overcome by this cosmic tug.

Inside that limit Earth's gravity will tear the moon apart, giving us a ring like those around Saturn.

Oh, and the more earth there is, the more it will heat up.

See, if there are more unstable elements in the crust and interior, more heat will reach the surface and there may be much more volcanic activity.

And I don't know about you, but I'd rather not live in a world where there's a constant threat of an exploding volcano.

Anyway, if you could live anywhere in the universe, no limitations, where would it be and why?

If I could, I'd totally live in Jupiter's great red spot.

It'd be pretty dangerous, but I'm an animation.

Make sure you come back every monday for a brand new video.