• Question: if a new planet is formed (another big bsng occurs) near to earth will it destroy our planet?

    Asked by milliecarpenter to Davie, Gemma, James P, James V, Nuala on 28 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: James Verdon

      James Verdon answered on 28 Jun 2012:


      Hi millie,

      The big bang is not what causes planets. The big bang is what created the whole universe! We couldn’t now have another big bang, because the universe already exists now.

      Planets are formed as space dust (mainly hydrogen atoms, but small amounts of all the other elements as well) accumulates under the force of gravity until there is enough to form a new planet. All the space dust around us has already gone into making the sun and the planets we know, so we couldn’t form any new planets around us. There are regions in space called nebulae, where there is lots of space-dust (the Orion and Horsehead nebula are probably the most well known). We can see new stars forming in these nebula from the dust as it comes together under gravity, so new planets are probably forming there as well (but they are too small for us to see).

      I hope that explanation makes sense for you Millie….

    • Photo: James Pope

      James Pope answered on 28 Jun 2012:


      Hi milliecarpenter,

      Back, when the Earth was very young and still molton rock all over, another small plent collided with the molten Earth and was absorbed into the Earth, as it hit is caused an explosion of a small amount of material and that material cooled, hardened and has been orbiting us ever since as the moon! But that was 4.5 billion years ago, and it can’t happen since then as James V’s answer explains!

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