• Question: how was the sun or moon created?

    Asked by to Kate on 17 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Kate Salmon

      Kate Salmon answered on 17 Mar 2014:


      Hi @lolly1- the sun was created like all other stars in a nursery of dust and gas, much like the Horsehead Nebula (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsehead_Nebula)- a Nebula is just where stars grow up. The sun was born ~5 billion years ago and would have grown in size as it attracted more and more gas and dust through its gravitational pull. As it got bigger and bigger, the force of gravity would have become very strong, trying to make the star collapse in on itself and this would have made the inside of our sun very hot as everything got compressed. It would also have triggered a nuclear fusion which is when the star starts to give out light and heat. After the sun was born, there would have still been a lot of left-over rocks and debris floating around the sun which crashed into each other and formed asteroids and very early planets (called planetesimals). These objects would have gradually got bigger as they collided with each other, building up all the planets in the solar system, including earth ~4.5 billion years ago.

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