Astronomy questions from kids, Part 3

My friend Tina is a teacher in Austin. She asked her sixth grade students to send me questions they had about astronomy, and I answer them on question. There were so many I had to split this into *5* parts!

This is Part 3, and these are the questions they asked me:

1) How do planets form?

2) Does Mars have polar ice caps?

3) What's a meteoroid?

4) How do we measure temperatures on distant planets?

5) How large is the asteroid belt?

6) What happened to "Planet X"?

7) Can the Earth blow up?

Category:

Education

Tags:

• phil plait
• bad astronomy
• astronomy
• science
• students
• Pluto
• aliens
• planets
• Moon
• Mars
• space

[GunzFTW99]

No, you can't see Nibru, they SAY that you can, which you can't because it doesn't even exist, it was a hot topic in the late 80's or something like that but then it disappeared because they found out they were wrong, and the excessive plain tracks which is what I think you mean, that's not to cover up Nibru.

[Salladsdressing]

I could listen to Phil all day long! =D

[evaninboots]

@XbladeDragon yes. also everything that exists was once being forged within the belly of a star even our bodies

[slimchance87]

Never under estimate a death star young padawan

[TOSViolator]

@mormongod

Goodbye, cultist.

[caste2510]

@SmokeWeedEveryHour yea i was studying the celestia worksheets

[SmokeWeedEveryHour]

@Germanboy567 Not nescesarily. :)

[SmokeWeedEveryHour]

@caste2510 That is how you could terraform mars, there are no official plans underway to actually do that though. I think what you read was somebody simply explaining how it could be done :)

[XbladeDragon]

Does that mean that the earth was a star at one point?

[mousaey]

Spectroscopy always amazes me