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What's the Maximum Gravity We Could Survive?

Depends on how strong you are.

D-brief
By Michael Allen
Sep 20, 2018 7:13 PMMay 9, 2020 10:26 PM
super earth
The super-Earth Kepler 62f, estimated to be around 40% larger than Earth. (Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech)

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If we wish to colonize another world, finding a planet with a gravitational field that humans can survive and thrive under will be crucial. If its gravity is too strong our blood will be pulled down into our legs, our bones might break, and we could even be pinned helplessly to the ground.

Finding the gravitational limit of the human body is something that’s better done before we land on a massive new planet. Now, in a paper published on the pre-print server arXiv, three physicists, claim that the maximum gravitational field humans could survive long-term is four-and-a-half times the gravity on Earth.

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