Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

fliguana t1_ixwq0dy wrote

>For pretty much all important considerations, the only number you need to know is a planet's surface gravity. This will govern such things as the escape velocity

Incorrect. Two planets with identical surface gravity can have different escape velocities.

Simplification is good to a point, dumbing down leads to errors.

2

haysoos2 t1_ixwrzrc wrote

Ok, admittedly escape velocity will be a little different. In my examples above the escape velocity on the iron planet will be 1.7 times higher than on Earth, and on the water planet it will only be about 20% that of Earth's escape velocity, but it's close enough that for say, a fiction based on the Star Wars universe it will be much closer than anything actually used in the series.

1