• Question: how do planets form

    Asked by bradleyglynn to Rob, Adam, Geoff, Sheila, Suzie on 16 Mar 2011 in Categories: . This question was also asked by gp1g, michaelwhu.
    • Photo: Sheila Kanani

      Sheila Kanani answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Heya,
      This is a little bit of a cop out because I’m just giving you a youtube link instead of typing, but I really like this video (apart from the funny voice, he sounds like a robot!).
      If you have more questions after the video please ask me 😀

    • Photo: Adam Tuff

      Adam Tuff answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Interesting question! A star usually forms from a big cloud of dust – bits of dust clump together, which over time get bigger and bigger, join with other clumps, until it’s big enough that it has enough mass to start attracting other clumps by gravity. Eventually the biggest mass (usually of hydrogen and helium as those are common elements) forms the centre of a system, attracting more and more until it is big enough and hot enough to ignite, and start reactions and produce heat – this is a proto-star, or a new star. There are usually smaller balls of mass orbiting the new born star, and these eventually form the planets – the heavy elements stay near the star forming the rock planets, while the lighter elements move further out forming the gas planets – at least this is how we think it happens!

    • Photo: Suzie Sheehy

      Suzie Sheehy answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      From buried memories of my astrophysics classes… i think gravity causes a whole lot of dust (from a ‘planetary nebula’) to collect together and form a lump -or planet- but it happens over a LONG time!

    • Photo: Geoff McBride

      Geoff McBride answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      I met with a scientist yesterday that is working on this. She thinks it may be grains of dust stacking up similar to cars on the M25. This leads to a lump that has more weight or mass than nearby dust and therefore more gravitation attraction so this pulls in more dust. This goes on and on. So depending on how much stuff lumps together in that if there is a lot you get a star or if there’s less you get a planet.

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