How significant is a planet's density to the formation of life?

Question

I'm doing some writing set on a fictional earthlike planet that for reasons needs to be substantially larger than Earth but can't have substantially higher gravity. I've been able to compromise with a planet that's 6x the circumference, having a surface gravity of 1.5G, yielding a density of about 4700kg/m^3. This is quite a bit (~15%) less than Earth and Venus, but (20%) more than Mars. It would proportionally have less heavy metal, meaning less iron for a protective magnetic field. I would like this planet to have some basis in reality - could such a planet be earth-like, and is there a definitive range of planet densities where life as we know it could exist?

Answer 1

This is possible. In this scenario, the star must be a small red star. A star that is yellow like ours or a white/blue star would produce solar winds that would blast through this planet's weak magnetic sphere.