• Question: if earth were the fourth planet which planet would we live on ?

    Asked by thebadboyz12 to Anna on 2 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Angharad Davies

      Angharad Davies answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      Well, as Mars is the fourth planet from our Sun the Earth would be a bit like Mars. There are channels on the surface of Mars which look as though they were made by water, so some think it might have been possible for life to occur on Mars. But if we lived on Mars we’d be different – we’d have to breathe carbon dioxide instead of oxygen, for example. So we wouldn’t really be the same as we are on our Earth.

      On the third planet from the sun, the conditions might be more similar to those on Earth now, so I think it’s more likely we’d be living there, which would be Mars!

Comments

  • Photo: Jonathan

    Jonathan commented on :

    You have to guess about questions like this. My guess is that we wouldn’t exist because life has probably only evolved on a small fraction of the planets it could have evolved on.

    The exciting bit is that we can now detect lots of planets circling other stars.