• Question: why do we have a solar system?

    Asked by bellaswan123 to Emma, Anil, Blanka, Cees, Mike on 28 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by lionalmessi.
    • Photo: Blanka Sengerova

      Blanka Sengerova answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      It wasn’t made for any particular reason, but it formed because of the forces in space that sort of pulled the planets together. I guess that’s not a very satisfying answer, but maybe it answers what you were looking for?

    • Photo: Emma Trantham

      Emma Trantham answered on 29 Jun 2012:

      If you wanted to know more about how the solar system formed there is a lovely article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/apr/28/starsgalaxiesandplanets.geology which talks about how bits of dust clumped together and as more and more clumped together they eventually formed clumps of rock big enough to generate their own gravity field. (These bigger clumps are called planetesimals – such a cool word!)

      Once they had gravity the clumps started to attract other bits of space dust in.

      Eventually some of these planetesimals became the planets we know today.

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