• Question: do you think that there is a planet with life?

    Asked by Veronica to Elliot, Hazel, Rupesh, Thomas on 22 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Thomas Biggans

      Thomas Biggans answered on 22 Jun 2016:

      Yes I do,

      We’re actively looking for other planets that are similar to Earth and we’ve a couple of candidates. We call them goldilocks planets and if they’re similar to Earth then its likely what started life here could’ve started life there too.

      Can’t be sure however on what form of life it would be, would it be similar to us or completely and utterly different?

    • Photo: Elliot Jokl

      Elliot Jokl answered on 22 Jun 2016:

      Thanks for the question!

      Yes, the universe is very big. So even though life is pretty tough to get going, there are enough potential places out there that the chances of there being another planet with life on it are almost certain. It is also, however, very likely that these other planets are too far away for us to ever know much about them.

      I find it really interesting to think about how life might be different on other planets. All life on earth is related in a very big family tree, so even though there are lots of different forms of life, there are certain things that all life on earth seems to have, like DNA for example. So maybe life in other places found something different to use in order to work, and these differences might tell us a lot about what life is, and maybe change a lot of our definitions about what makes life, well, life. It would really be fascinating to know!

Comments