• Question: Do you believe that there is life on other planets?

    Asked by bucho98 to Becky, Carrie, Kelly, Robin, Usaid on 13 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Robin Stafford Allen

      Robin Stafford Allen answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      @bucho98: It is almost certain that on another planet a long way away that there is life. Just as when I was young it was believed that our galaxy was it and not we know there are some 80 Billion Galaxies, we will discover there is life on many planets. But do not get your hopes up too much. We have some very intelligent life-forms on this planet – dolphins and elephants to take but two examples and we have a devil of a job talking to them in any meaningful way! Regards Robin

    • Photo: Becky Selwyn

      Becky Selwyn answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      Yes definitely! It is just too far away for us to find. The scientists have found loads of planets that they think are like Earth recently, but I don’t think the life will be like us.

Comments

  • Photo: bucho98

    bucho98 commented on :

    Thanks for answering, but why are planets that possibly have life so far away from planet earth, why aren’t they closer?

    • Photo: Robin

      Robin commented on :

      @buch: For life to be on a planet it needs to be just the right distance from its sun. Too close and it get fried and the water evaporates away, too far and the water is all ice and it is cold. Hence of all the planets around this part of our galaxy, finding a second like earth at just the right distance is quite unlikely, but that there are planets somewhere in our galaxy is almost a certainty. There are some 100 billion stars just like our sun, but very few of them are anything like within travelling distance of our solar system (that is our sun, mars, and earth etc. system). Hoep this explains it a bit. It could also be that there is another planet quite near by………………….. regards Robin

  • Photo: Robin

    Robin commented on :

    @buch: The galaxy we live in is huge. It is from memory 20,000 light years across, and this is just our galaxy. There are approximately 80 BILLION galaxies that we have detected, and they are so far away that we could never travel to them without breaking the fundamental law of physics that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Light takes 8 minutes to from our sun, but the radio waves from the very first radio and television broadcasts are only about 100 light years away now, so in proportion to the 20,000 light years of the diameter of our galaxy, this is only a little bit of our galaxy away… Sounds fantastic and actually is, to me anyway…………