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Asked by lillytot11 to Ed, Katie, Sam, Steve, Vera on 19 Jun 2011.
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Sam Tazzyman answered on 17 Jun 2011:
I’m afraid I don’t know much about this, but I think the Earth formed at a similar time to the rest of the Solar system – about 4.5 billion years ago (this is a huge amount of time that I personally find impossible to imagine). I think what happened was when the Sun formed there was stuff left over which was orbiting around it, and this stuff all clumped together and formed into planets. But I’m afraid I can’t give you a more scientific or technical explanation than that.
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Ed Morrison answered on 17 Jun 2011:
Like Sam, I’m not an expert on this. But I think that after the big bang there was loads of material swirling around in the universe. The effect of gravity broughts big clumps together to forms starts and planets. This was about 4.5 billion years ago. About 1 billion years later, the first life-forms evolved.
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Steven Daly answered on 18 Jun 2011:
Sam and Ed are right, the Earth (and everything on it) is made from the material left over from the Sun. There isn’t very much leftover, the sun makes up 99% of the mass of the Solar System, it is truly massive.
The material which the Solar System is made from came from a supernova. That is when a star explodes at the end of its life, creating all kinds of new elements in the process. In fact the only way that heavy elements can form originally is in a supernova! This gas then collapsed due to gravity which created the Sun. The same thing then happened for the planets.
The cool thing is that every atom in your body was once in a star!
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Comments
chelss commented on :
VERY INTRESTING!!!!!