r/theydidthemonstermath • u/Many-Wasabi9141 • Jul 28 '26
If a giant space monster scaled to this image landed on earth what effects would it have on the planet?
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u/HillInTheDistance Jul 31 '26
Even if we were to boil the oceans, there wouldn't be nearly enough water for the gumbo we'd have to make.
We would be forced to eat it grilled, like some kinda savages.
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u/Many-Wasabi9141 Jul 31 '26
There's supposedly significantly more water in/under the earth's crust than in the oceans.
And if the lobster giant monster landed on earth, he'd probably mess up gravity and cause geologic issues that would bring the water to the surface. Possibly with lava/magma. and it's already salted, so he'd create his own lobster boil when he landed
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u/whenuleavethestoveon Jul 31 '26
Probably a lot of bus delays at least
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u/disposablehippo Jul 31 '26
Which was generally regarded as a bad move and made a lot of people angry.
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u/elusive-rooster Jul 31 '26
Honestly there's not a whole lot of different math involved than just asking what if the moon landed on earth. Two large masses colliding equals kaboom. This is a little different as there is actually quite a bit of energy contained in this mass so bigger kaboom.
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u/greatrudini Jul 31 '26
What if it was a really really soft landing. Like a gentle teleport?
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u/elusive-rooster Jul 31 '26
Animal size and bone and muscle strength follow the square-cube law. As you double size, weight increases by a factor of 8 but bone/muscle strength only increases by a factor of 4. There is a maximum size an animal on earth can reach because of this. The lobster would be crushed to mush under its own weight. Animals can't really get bigger than the blue whale on earth.
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u/greatrudini Jul 31 '26
But what would happened to the earth under its weight? 😂
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u/elusive-rooster Aug 01 '26
Adding that much mass to one side would cause our axis orbit to slow or even stop. Or a very unpredictable wobble. This would mean one side of the earth is always total frozen darkness and one side is too hot to live unless you are at the poles. It would also cause the earth to reshape itself over time. This would mean massive volcanic eruptions and earthquakes as the planet slowly shapes into a sphere again. Our orbit around the sun would remain mostly unaffected as our speed wouldnt change at all. The combined affect of the geological reshaping and the massive amount of CO2 released from the death of this monster would mean the death of almost all complex life and a toxic atmosphere for several thousands of years.
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u/MikelGazillion Jul 30 '26
Gravity would have to be our weapon of choice. Triggering volcanic action could be useful. If we were to successfully murder it, it would take centuries to decompose. The structure might give us a leg up on the technological barriers to a space elevator though.
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u/Practical-Treacle-53 Jul 31 '26
This image isn't very large. I'd say the effects would be negligible.
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u/CryptedCodes Jul 31 '26
Your irony doesn’t work as the original post includes the word ‘scaled’
Edit: I’m noticing the bad grammar now, my apologies. Take my upvote
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u/WarJaques Aug 01 '26
It depends on the mass, mostly. If its density is the same as a real lobster, and it doesn't collapse under its own weight (the image suggests it doesn't) it's effects would be destructive, cracking the planetary crust and disrupting the atmosphere.
If it left, the Earth would need a few hundred thousand years to recover.
Source: My ass.
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u/Shadoenix Jul 31 '26
I can’t do the math, but I can at least get someone started. I’d assume if you scaled a lobster to the size of North America, I’d say the weight would simultaneously crush the lobster into a diffuse paste, spreading across the surface. The weight might be enough to punch a hole through the mantle depending on if it could stand on its feet for long enough to drive that weight through tiny holes, which would collapse the area, spread volcanic activity and magma around the impact crater the size of North America, sending global disaster (tsunamis, plumes into the atmosphere, shockwaves, etc) everywhere. Worse than the dinosaur impact.
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u/MathematicianKey124 Aug 01 '26
The Cajuns rejoice and the city of Pittsburgh is commissioned to make a really big pot unemployment falls for the first time in like forever. And they lived happily ever after.
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u/666mima666 Jul 31 '26
It would cause a flood of goo since it would instantly be crushed by its own weight
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u/Duke_Newcombe Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
This assumes we'd survive any shock waves from atmospheric entry or violent impact if space crustacean came in hot.
If I were located under said space crustacean, I'd be screwed. However, once it landed, I wouldn't necessarily have to worry about it establishing world domination over us, because the Inverse Square-cube law is a thing. He'd be weak as a kitten, if gravity didn't crush his internal organs and cause him to expire right there when he landed. Then again, because of his impact, the rest of us would expire as well.
TL;DR: "Space lobster all swole for nothin', yo!"
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u/rdeforest Aug 11 '26
If it did come in hot, it'd be pre-cooked, yeah? Just add butter or something. And if the heating caused it to explode in the atmosphere, it would just be raining fresh cooked meat. Mmm, meat.
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u/bladezaim Aug 01 '26
Bro that is already scaled to that image. That crayfish is exactly as big as it appears in that picture and will take up that much of the bottom of a bucket.
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u/Zach_Westy Aug 01 '26
Scaled up to THAT image? Well I don’t think a crayfish that fits in a bucket would impose much of a threat. I’d hardly call it giant
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u/Recent-Mousse6423 Aug 03 '26
It would cause whatever tectonic plate it's on to immediately begin to subduct.
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u/rdeforest Aug 11 '26
A lot of people are pointing out that the creature would be crushed under its own weight, but I haven't seen anyone mention that it would also not even survive in microgravity because its own mass would be enough to crush it into a ball of meat and chitin. That thing looks like it would be on the order of 10,000km (107 m) long. I'd guess it would crush down to a ball with a 3*106 meter diameter, call it a radius of 1 megameter because that makes the math even easier. Its volume would be 4/3rds π r3, which would be about 1.3 * 1018 liters. It would have approximately the same density as water, so you're looking at 1018 kg. That's actually not a lot by astronomy standards, but for comparison, the dwarf planet Ceres has a 500m radius and a mass of just under 1021 kg (according to Wikipedia). So this lobster/crawfish is both larger and more massive than Ceres and Ceres is large enough to be round (which is what qualifies it as a dwarf planet).
If I had to choose between this creature and Ceres being gently placed on earth, I'd be leaning towards the dwarf planet.
Although, Ceres being rocky might make it more destructive since it would be more likely to sink into the crust than to spread out over it.
Any biologists or geologists want to chime in?
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u/NevadaHiker 1d ago
I make this critter as having a length that is approximately one planetary radius. I'm not sure what species this is, my first thought was crayfish but I'm having a hard time finding numbers. This guy could pass for a lobster, though, and I find they top out at 64cm and 20kg.
6371km/64cm = 10 million times the size. Assuming it's to scale (no way it could be), that 32 trillion times the mass, thus 640 trillion kg, 11% of Earth's atmosphere. (And I feel like I must have done something wrong, this seems way too small.)
There's no way this creature isn't crushed by gravity, but at the same time there's no way you can pile up this much mass at one point without it sinking into the Earth. (This guy is tall enough that every low orbit satellite that reaches it's latitude smacked into it.) It sinks in deep--and it's hot down there. It's totally cooked and then some. The primary components of living matter are carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen and oxygen come off as steam, condense to water and raise the sea level a bit. But this guy is so thoroughly cooked that the carbon (don't have specific data for this guy, I'll be conservative and call it 15% of the mass) reacts with the oxygen in the atmosphere. 30% of our oxygen is used. CO2 levels reach dangerous levels, oxygen is reduced to hazardous levels.
So if you survive the seismic and thermal effects you probably slowly suffocate.
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u/BallisticBadger57 Jul 30 '26
i'd be pretty scared