What if Earth Were Twice as Big?
By Adam Hadhazy, Life's Little Mysteries Contributor
During the new DC Comics Universe series
Premium Link
Upgrade
in which a time-traveling supervillain alters the past to warp the present, Life's Little Mysteries presents a 10-part series that examines what would happen if a major event in the history of the universe had gone just slightly different.
What if ... Earth were twice as big?
If Earth's diameter were doubled to about 16,000 miles, the planet's mass would increase eight times, and the ***** of gravity on the planet would be twice as strong.
Life would be: Built and proportioned differently.
If gravity were twice as strong, bodies possessing the same construction and mass as our flora and fauna would weigh twice as much and would collapse. It'd be "timber!" for tall, thick trees such as redwoods. Large, sunward-reaching plants might still develop, but would require stiffer architectures of cellulose fibers or another material altogether.
