• Question: How were the planets created and are their any species on them?

    Asked by 599cmtm33 to Aileen, Caroline, Christopher, Rehemat, Stephanie, Stephen on 6 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Christopher Nankervis

      Christopher Nankervis answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      Nobody has observed a planet being created, though scientists think that lots of rocks need to join together to form a planet with a lot of energy.

    • Photo: Aileen Baird

      Aileen Baird answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      Planets (and the rest of the universe) were created during and just after the big bang. With current space technology, we have still only explored a tiny tiny piece of the universe, so there will be lots and lots of other planets in the universe that we don’t even know exist yet. I think that because there are so many other planets that must exist in our universe, the chances are that species (life) exists on another planet somewhere. But currently we don’t have any proof for this.

      In short- we don’t know!

    • Photo: Stephanie Mann

      Stephanie Mann answered on 7 Mar 2018:

      Many scientists think planets were formed around the same time the stars they orbit were born. When stars are just beginning they start to gather lots and lots of dust and elements around them and as these fall into the centre of the star they heat up and start fusing together and generating lots and lots of heat and light energy. Many of the dust and particle around the star don’t actually fall right into the centre, but form a big disk (a bit like Saturns rings) and these particles clump together because of gravity and form planets.

      This is one theory but scientists keep discovering new planets that wouldn’t exist if this was the only way planets were made, so we still have lots to learn!

      We haven’t found any other species yet but we keep finding new planets every day, some of which COULD have life, because they are a similar size and temperature as Earth.

    • Photo: Stephen Twomlow

      Stephen Twomlow answered on 7 Mar 2018:

      The others have given all of the answers I would give – apart from the fact that if life does exist on other planets it may not look like anything we are used to on earth, as gravity may be different, the air maybe different – all things that will change the nature of life. if you have watched David Attenboroughs Blue Plant series when the look at the life that exists close to some of the volcanic vents in the deep oceans may give you idea, where there is no oxygen and sulphur is dominant

    • Photo: Caroline Hickman

      Caroline Hickman answered on 12 Mar 2018:

      I really really hope that there is!

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