Baby Planet: Difference between revisions

Line 1:

[[File:~~the_little_prince1_7459~~.jpg|link=The Little Prince|right]]

[[File:the little prince1 7459.jpg|link=The Little Prince|right]]

An inhabitable planet that is far smaller than astronomically possible, often less than a few functional miles in diameter. As a general rule, a [[Baby Planet]] is small enough that you can see its curvature even on the surface. In [[Real Life]], a body this small would be called an asteroid, and would be incapable of supporting an atmosphere (of useful density at a life-supporting temperature), and would probably not even be spherical, but in fiction, these often sport [[All Planets Are Earthlike|an entire ecosystem]] awkwardly compressed into the minute available space.

An inhabitable planet that is far smaller than astronomically possible, often less than a few functional miles in diameter. As a general rule, a '''Baby Planet''' is small enough that you can see its curvature even on the surface. In [[Real Life]], a body this small would be called an asteroid, and would be incapable of supporting an atmosphere (of useful density at a life-supporting temperature), and would probably not even be spherical, but in fiction, these often sport [[All Planets Are Earthlike|an entire ecosystem]] awkwardly compressed into the minute available space.

Although [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]], they usually aren't this far off the mark on accident; this trope usually comes about either because of limitations in technology's ability to represent planets in a realistic scale, or just for the sake of aesthetic.