Planet of the giants or land of the micro people?

Ok, im not sure if this has been covered here before so fogive me if it has.

When we think of aliens visiting our earth they are often described as roughly the size of a human child upwards to about 8ft. Don't you think thats a coincidence,some of the planets out there could be bigger than our sun.

Say there was a planet that was 5 times bigger than earth with 5x our gravity, it would be a scaled up version of earth. Wouldnt that mean that it is likely that everything that grows there could be 5 times bigger? Trees taller than our tallest buildings, extreme mountains, oceans so deep it would take weeks to reach the bottom! In theory there could even be a single being as big as our planet! The only thing we can compare sizes to is things here on earth and the size of our sun is tiny compared to the largest KNOWN star. (they could potentially be much bigger than that).

On the contrary things could be scaled down, there could be humanoid type beings that are smaller than a mouse! like the borrowers! They could easily visit earth without us noticing. Maybe a spaceship as big as a fly.. who knows.

We may be tiny compared to others out there, just a thought that entered my head and i thought i would share

[edit on 25-5-2007 by fiftyfifty]

Spaceship as small as a fly hahahaha. I laughed my ass off when I read that.

I like your theory though. Sounds interesting, and it's similar to thoughts I've had before. But there are so many theories that it's almost better to just leave it alone T_T

Sorry I can't put more input right now. I'm really lazy atm.

[edit on 25-5-2007 by ZikhaN]

Originally posted by fiftyfifty
They could easily visit earth without us noticing. Maybe a spaceship as big as a fly.. who knows.

We may be tiny compared to others out there, just a thought that entered my head and i thought i would share

[edit on 25-5-2007 by fiftyfifty]

Your fly remark is nice, who knows. Maybe they are the small orbs?

Actually animals on a heavier planet would probably be shorter and stockier. The increased gravity would make them have to be more sturdy to move about on the surface.

I always thought that if you take humans sometimes we have headlice in our hair or bugs flying around us but what is on the back of the woodlice or inscect on a microscopic level.... can life at this size think like we can or even have a primitive society.

what u think?

Originally posted by djohnsto77
Actually animals on a heavier planet would probably be shorter and stockier. The increased gravity would make them have to be more sturdy to move about on the surface.

Why? Maybe they have no bone, but something much tinner and stronger as skeleton.

Personally I think life is self-balancing. In simple terms, if you are small then bigger animals will potentially eat you and if you're big you instead require so much energy you'll spend most of your waking time feeding thus have little time for technology. Of course its a little more complicated than that when we start to take into account type of animal and gravity and such.

Originally posted by Cygnific
Why? Maybe they have no bone, but something much tinner and stronger as skeleton.

Well yeah, if they've evolved titanium or steel skeletons, then maybe.

Originally posted by sostyles
I always thought that if you take humans sometimes we have headlice in our hair or bugs flying around us but what is on the back of the woodlice or inscect on a microscopic level.... can life at this size think like we can or even have a primitive society.

what u think?

I've thought that as well lol, and is there life on the backs of the things on the backs of them? how far down does it go?

DJohnsto77 - Why would they have to be shorter and stockier? look at the size of an ant compared to us. They do pretty fine without a titanium skeleton. or perhaps a giraffe, quite a thin skeleton but pretty big. If the planet was 50 times bigger than ours then there would be enough space for life to grow much bigger than it does here.. perhaps even a need to. The bigger you are, the less time its gonna take you to travel from A-B unless you are small and superquick!

[edit on 25-5-2007 by fiftyfifty]

I never consideredsomething like this but when you think about it.. it makes sense good job

[edit on 25-5-2007 by PwN3d]

Originally posted by fiftyfifty
DJohnsto77 - Why would they have to be shorter and stockier? look at the size of an ant compared to us. They do pretty fine without a titanium skeleton. or perhaps a giraffe, quite a thin skeleton but pretty big. If the planet was 50 times bigger than ours then there would be enough space for life to grow much bigger than it does here.. perhaps even a need to. The bigger you are, the less time its gonna take you to travel from A-B unless you are small and superquick!

Why aren't there gigantic insects and other arthropods roaming the Earth then?

Their exoskeleton works very well for a small sized animal, but not well at all for a large sized one. An elephant-sized ant would simply collapse under its own weight. Same thing as gravity increases.

There are many, many threads that have asked roughly the same thing.
However there
is only one that has been recently active.

It can be found here.
Kind of a stupid thought, but what about the

I ask this question in most alien threads that I come across and it's usually ignored lol

I even asked my science teacher a few years back and she didn't know what to say!

Originally posted by djohnsto77

Originally posted by fiftyfifty
DJohnsto77 - Why would they have to be shorter and stockier? look at the size of an ant compared to us. They do pretty fine without a titanium skeleton. or perhaps a giraffe, quite a thin skeleton but pretty big. If the planet was 50 times bigger than ours then there would be enough space for life to grow much bigger than it does here.. perhaps even a need to. The bigger you are, the less time its gonna take you to travel from A-B unless you are small and superquick!

Why aren't there gigantic insects and other arthropods roaming the Earth then?

Their exoskeleton works very well for a small sized animal, but not well at all for a large sized one. An elephant-sized ant would simply collapse under its own weight. Same thing as gravity increases.

Because life has evolved (some people think.. lets just base this on the evolution theory) to adapt to our eaths various environments. Leaving gravity out of the equation, because to be honest i can't quite work out how it would work, if the planet was almost the same as ours but scaled up many times, there is a good chance that life had evolved in the same way but on a larger scale.

Using the giraffe as an example again, if the trees grew much taller, then they would have to be much taller to reach the leaves, If the oceans were deeper, then sealife would have to be much bigger and stronger to get to the depths.

Of course this is only a theory, I'm not saying that its something i believe and will stand by until proven wrong! There is also the possibility that maybe on a molecular level, ie water molecules, air particles could mean that it would be biologically unfeasable for life to exixt beyond a certain size and vise versa. But then you have to look at the what if they don't breathe air like we do, what if they don't use water.. there may be other elements out in the universe that we are unaware of.

The truth is the possibilities are endless.. We know nothing.

[edit on 26-5-2007 by fiftyfifty]

Originally posted by djohnsto77
Actually animals on a heavier planet would probably be shorter and stockier. The increased gravity would make them have to be more sturdy to move about on the surface.

Correct. The stronger the gravity the smaller the life. In weaker gravity life doesn't need as much of a base so it can evolve to be taller and lighter.

Originally posted by djohnsto77

Originally posted by fiftyfifty
DJohnsto77 - Why would they have to be shorter and stockier? look at the size of an ant compared to us. They do pretty fine without a titanium skeleton. or perhaps a giraffe, quite a thin skeleton but pretty big. If the planet was 50 times bigger than ours then there would be enough space for life to grow much bigger than it does here.. perhaps even a need to. The bigger you are, the less time its gonna take you to travel from A-B unless you are small and superquick!

Why aren't there gigantic insects and other arthropods roaming the Earth then?

Their exoskeleton works very well for a small sized animal, but not well at all for a large sized one. An elephant-sized ant would simply collapse under its own weight. Same thing as gravity increases.

When arthropods were around pre-history they lived in the ocean. In those times the average arthropod's size wasn't measured in centimetres, but feet. Because water was more buoyant it was effectively a look at a planet with lower gravity. The arthropods could grow to HUGE sizes, they were the top of the food chain... and all because the lower gravity could support a huge exoskeleton.
When they made the move to the land, the gravity was stronger and so the species with heavier exoskeletons slowly died out as their smaller prey animals could now evade them, and their competitors were faster and able to catch more food than them.

Originally posted by fiftyfifty
Using the giraffe as an example again, if the trees grew much taller, then they would have to be much taller to reach the leaves

Or the animal would need to be able to climb, fly, glide, jump, knock fruit down, throw stones etc etc. There are tons of possibilities for animals around tall trees to get food.
Monkeys feed in tall trees and they average knee height.

Its a good theory but there are a few flaws. A planet fifty times bigger than Earth would have gravity AT LEAST fifty times stronger than ours, not taking into account the speed it rotates.
If an equivalent of a gazelle was to evolve there it would need to have very thick bones (probably as thick as the trunk of a small tree), more than four legs (to spread its weight over a larger surface area) and a HUGE heart that is strong enough to pump blood around the body.