Space scientists are always trying to find out for sure how our solar system and it's planets were created. And what's really exciting is that they are seeing distant solar systems just like ours that are just started to form planets.

It is believed that the large gaseous planets formed first and the small rocky planets, like Earth and Mars formaed afterwards. In our Solar System that would mean that Jupiter or Saturn were created first.

Richard Ferch, ab351@freenet.carleton.ca, answered it several years ago so we'll repeat it once more since the theories about where the planets came from haven't changed much since then.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy, contains lots of huge clouds of gas and dust. Some of these clouds start to collapse, or fall in to the middle of the cloud. The gas at the middle keeps getting thicker and hotter. If the cloud is big enough, the gas at the middle gets so hot that it starts to shine. That is a star. Our sun is just one of these stars.

The dust particles in the cloud also collect together, and form rocks, asteroids and planets. Our Earth is one of these planets.

To find out more, try reading the book called "Stars", by Seymour Simon. It has catalogue number 523.8 SIM in your school library. Older students might enjoy a book called "Private Lives of the Stars", by Roy A. Gallant. I found it at the Carlingwood branch of the Ottawa Public Library.

Answer #% % filename IO.DOT page% % page 1 of% % numpages 1 % % date \@ "MMMM d, yyyy"June 18, 1998