Planets

October 18, 2020

It is true that a star can turn into a planet, but the star has to be a brown dwarf. There are multiple different types of star, all having different properties, but in order for a star to become a planet, it would have to have been a brown dwarf star.Brown dwarfs are stars?Normally, stars

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October 11, 2020

Thanks to gravity, the earth does fall. It is actually in a constant state of falling since it is in orbit around the sun. This gravitational pull that the sun has on the earth is useful since it stops earth from catapulting into space. Gravity means that objects are not just drawn to the thing

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October 2, 2020

Given the recent discovery of the presence of liquid water on Mars, how likely do you think the possibility of terraforming is? (I know that part’s open-ended, but stick with me.) Can you postulate a method to begin colonization and terraforming simultaneously, or would humans have to wait the (presumed) hundreds—if not thousands—of years for

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October 2, 2020

Is Pluto still a planet? How can astronomers decide if Pluto is or not a planet? Thank you for your question. It is one that often comes up, and hopefully my response will clarify Pluto’s status. The short answer is no, Pluto is no longer a planet. It is now classified as a type of

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October 2, 2020

Approximately how long does it take for a planet to be born? Is a planet currently forming and if there is, what is its name? To answer how long it takes for planets to form, we first need to have a look at how planets are formed. The formation of planets is very closely related

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October 2, 2020

Is Jupiter a failed star? I study how stars and planets form, which is a big part of the ways that Jupiter both is and isn’t like a star. We can consider Jupiter to look somewhat like a “failed star” because it actually has a chemical composition that is very similar to the Sun. Jupiter

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October 2, 2020

e most mornings, and I notice and understand how over the course of a year it rises in a different area on the horizon. These position changes having to do with the Earth’s tilt and rotation around the Sun. I also get to see the moonrise and its position change on the horizon, much like

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October 2, 2020

The New Horizons eclipse photo of Pluto shows the atmosphere as a blue ring, while a similar picture of Earth would show ours with a red hue. What causes the difference since they both have a nitrogen atmosphere? Thank you for your question. It’s a good one! You are correct in that the primary constituent

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