ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

In When World's Collide, the Earth was destroyed by the massive dwarf star Bellus. But the actual collision of two planets roughly the same size often ends up creating a new planet that combines the materials of the two worlds.

Such is the case with one of the four planets which orbit a star called Kepler 107, located 2,000 light years from my home in North Carolina (and thus from everybody else's home, too ).

The planet has the imaginative and colorful name of . . . Kepler 107c (wow, these scientists get plum crazy with planetary names), and despite the fact that Kepler 107c is about the same size as its sister world, Kepler 107b (the similar names prove their related, ya see), Kepler 107c is twice as dense as Kepler 107b. (I guess that's why the lighter one of the two is the "sister world". Big Brother is buff and beefy! )

Both planets are about 1.5 times the size of the Earth, despite the fact that Kepler 107c has a much higher density than Kepler 107b.

According to an article at ScienceNews.org called A space rock collision may explain how this exoplanet was born, the reason for the higher density is (according to the current theory) because Kepler 107c was created by a collision between two massive planets.

Here's how the article describes it.
________________________________

Computer simulations of the collision of two large rocky worlds, each with an iron core composing 30 percent of their mass, produced a single planet whose mass is nearly 70 percent iron, possibly similar to Kepler 107c. Most of the remaining material vaporized during the collision, the simulations suggest.

Lopez and his colleagues considered several possible explanations, including Kepler 107c forming closer to its star and then migrating away. But only one explanation resulted in Kepler 107c being more massive than the closer-in Kepler 107b: a giant collision between two worlds, each about 10 times Earth’s mass.
________________________________

By comparison, the Earth's composition is 35% iron (I looked it up), which means Big Brother Kepler 107c (the C standing for "chunky"), is twice as dense as Earth, even though it's only 50% bigger. That means it could beat up our planet with one hand tied behind it!

Since both of the two planets that collided were each ten times the mass of the Earth, and Kepler 107c ended up with only twice the Earth's mass, the amount of material that was vaporized was the equivalent of 18 Earths! (I hope I did the math right, folks, because the article didn't say that, I just figured it out on my own . . . correctly, I hope. )

The article also didn't say if the computer simulations put a ring around Kepler 107c, but you'd think it should have, since 18 times the mass of the Earth was hanging around after the fight was over and Kepler 107c was the Last Man Standing!

________________________________

Okay, so that's the SCIENCE. Now let's add the FICTION!
________________________________

While reading about Kepler 107c and thinking about the problem mankind faces when we consider trying to colonize a planet with a stronger gravity field than Earth, I came up with an interesting idea.

One of the important technological advances we desperately need to make before space exploration can be really practical (and fun) is the invention of artificial gravity.

By that I don't just mean the rotation of circular structures like wheel-shaped space stations. We need literal "gravity generators" that can provide the interior of a spaceship with decks the crew can walk around on in the sections where they want gravity. This also gives them the option to turn the gravity off in sections they don't want it, and even "dial it down" in areas where less gravity is preferred.

Naturally such gravity generators could be installed on Lunar colonies if we needed full one G gravity in some areas, but what occurred to me today is that these hypothetical gravity generators might be capable of lowering the gravity from the planet beneath a colony if the planet's gravity is too strong for humans to comfortably endure.

If this turns out to be the case, it might be possible to colonize a world like Kepler 107c and have the entire settlement be built on top of gravity generators which lower the gravity to Earth-normal.





Trips away from the colony in ground vehicles or aircraft could be made in less unpleasant by equipping the vehicles with gravity generates that would have the same effect on the occupants as the gravity generators in the colony.

Eventually we might even develop "G suits" which block a percentage of the planet's gravity and makes the wearer feel lighter.


________________


As the colony expands (and our technology advances) we might end up covering most of the planet with gravity generators which provide one G gravity practically everywhere.



_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)