I think it would be
cool to live on a really small
planet. I'm thinking something like ten
kilometers in
radius. The real problem would be lack of
gravity, of course. I figure I could imbed a chunk of
neutron star inside a small
globe of rock to give it a gravity equall to one
Earth gravity. The problem with this is that I don't know if the neutron star would just cause the microplanet to collapse into itself...maybe it wouldn't have enough
mass; after all, it would only mass as much as the Earth, not as much as a whole neutron star.
I think I could put this planetlet in orbit opposite the Earth, in a Kemplerer Rosette with the Earth. Perhaps we could have a whole string of them in orbit around the sun, each at one astronomical unit. With a large mountain on one side, it should be possible to offset the planetlet's center of mass enough to create tides. Or perhaps we could simply offset the neutron star core to achieve the same effect.
The main problem with this world would be the lack of weather. The atmosphere would be so small that any temperature differential between the poles and tropics would quickly even out. Besides, with the world spinning with a tangential velocity of about one four-hundreth of the Earth's, there would be very little coriolis effect. Perhaps this could be offset by spinning the world so that each day would only last four minutes, but, what with the tides and human physiology, that would get really old quickly. Maybe I'd just have to do without weather... It would be weird to have the horizon so low, too. Hmm... maybe this needs more thought...
Blast it people! I know it's a
giant rod idea! The gravity would collapse the planet and all. But it would still be COOL!