9 Ways You're Picturing Aliens Wrong

6. They Might Be Super Dumpy

Our search for habitable exoplanets has also thrown up a large number of "Super Earths" (partly because they're much easier to spot). These are rocky planets in the habitable zone that are multiple times bigger than our home planet.

Not only would this give its inhabitants more room to stretch their legs, but it would mean that the surface gravity would be much greater than here on Earth. This, in turn, would make everything on that planet relatively heavier too; it would be like trying to do everything with another person sitting on your shoulders.

In our science fiction, it is this effect that gives the likes of Superman his seemingly supernatural strength when under the influence of Earth's weaker gravity, but the reality would probably be more Ewok than Kal-El, with the planet's inhabitants developing shorter, stronger bones and wider, steadier bases.

So, in contrast to the elegant, waif-like aliens that we often dream up in our sci-fi and imaginations, it might be that an alien race has evolved a stocky, stumpy physique in order to cope with the additional stresses put on them by gravity.