• Question: do you know if there is life on other planets

    Asked by Primrose15 to Robert, Aimee, Gemma, Hussain, Ross on 9 Nov 2015. This question was also asked by Tills.
    • Photo: Robert Lees

      Robert Lees answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      I don’t know!

      There are lots of people listening to space for clues with satellite dishes, and watching space with telescopes. They’re looking for signals, we think that there must be life on other planets, but none that we have found so far. But life on other planets could not be intelligent and therefore WE need to find THEM, which is why we have sent rovers to Mars – our second closest planet.

      In other solar systems (with stars like our Sun), there are planets at the same distance as Earth with the same properties. These are planets which scientists think might have life on them, but they’re VERY VERY far away.

    • Photo: Ross King

      Ross King answered on 17 Nov 2015:

      I don’t know either, I am afraid! What do you think?

      I think it is extremely unlikely that our planet is the only planet in the whole of the universe (or even our galaxy!) that has life on it. There are other planets out there that look very similar to ours, and with similar conditions. They have recently discovered that Pluto has a lot of water on its surface, and water is so essential for life – maybe life is there?

      As for intelligent life, I’m not sure. It might be a bit of a stretch to find some advance alien lifeforms out there but I am confident we will at least find evidence of smaller organisms, like bacteria, out there – this could happen very soon!

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