• Question: Do you think it would be possible for another planet to form/grow?

    Asked by anon-226300 to joannabarstow on 18 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Joanna Barstow

      Joanna Barstow answered on 18 Nov 2019:

      New planets are made all the time in new star systems, but it would be difficult to make a new planet in the solar system at this late stage. New stars have a disc around them rich in dust and gas, which contains the raw materials needed to form planets, but when the star really gets going the stellar wind blows away the disc. Our Sun’s disc is long gone, so there’s nothing left to make a planet out of.

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