• Question: Is there another planet we can breath on? If yes what is its name?

    Asked by Dom.H to Hugh, Heather on 16 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Hugh Osborn

      Hugh Osborn answered on 16 Nov 2014:

      We need lots of oxygen (>16% of the air) to stay alive. This is actually really rare to find on other planets, partly because it was life itself (in the form of early plant life) that created our O2-rich atmosphere. So there are no planets in the solar system with air like ours. But we hope to search other planets around distant stars for oxygen, and if they have it they could well have life of their own!

    • Photo: Heather Campbell

      Heather Campbell answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      There probably is, but we haven’t found it yet!
      There are now lots of searches to planets round other stars now, and these are trying to find water which is essential for life as we know it, but these are all going too be too far away for us to be able to reach!

Comments