Aliens on Super Earths Require a Lot More Smarts to Get in Orbit
Now that we got a new planet hunter in orbit (TESS), we’re bound to find many more Earth-like planets. And, judging by discoveries so far, it’s quite likely that a lot of these planets will be super Earths, that is, terrestrial planets with a mass higher than Earth’s.
One of the most interesting and often-overlooked problem with super Earths concerns their gravity. These planets are big, meaning that their gravity would make it very difficult not only for potential human settlers to land or take off again, but also for any intelligent species that might develop there and attempt space travel.
