# The creation of the planets in our Solar System **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Tags:** science-math\ **Created:** [August 14, 2025, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-the-planets-in-our-solar-system/1022065 "2025-08-14T21:11:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2025, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-the-planets-in-our-solar-system/1022065/41 "2025-08-20T01:14:35Z")
Shouldn’t be too surprising that basically everything is worse than the one configuration we know to be conducive to life. Too far or too close? Bad. No moon? Bad. Too big a moon? Bad. Weird inclination? Bad. Double planet? Bad. Too slow/fast a rotation? Bad. And so on. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2025, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-the-planets-in-our-solar-system/1022065/42 "2025-08-20T01:19:18Z")
Wrong shape of puddle? Bad. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2025, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-the-planets-in-our-solar-system/1022065/43 "2025-08-20T01:31:43Z")
Sure, anthropic arguments only go so far, but many of these things seem independent of the exact characteristics of life. A planet where some part of the surface freezes for half the year and scorches the other half doesn’t seem very conducive. One that’s regularly pummeled by asteroids/comets seems bad. If we look at the history of life on Earth, it seems that we benefited by having just the right amount of physical selection pressure. Too little and you get stagnancy; too much and you lose ground by hitting reset too often (and possibly not allowing life in the first place). The environment is diverse but not _too_ diverse, encouraging life to fill out a variety of niches. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2025, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-the-planets-in-our-solar-system/1022065/44 "2025-08-20T21:22:32Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > A planet where some part of the surface freezes for half the year and scorches the other half doesn’t seem very conducive. I live on a part of the surface of a planet where that happens. Life manages to get by. Maybe it’d get by even better with less seasonable variability. Maybe it’d get by better with more. We just don’t have the sample size to tell. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2025, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-the-planets-in-our-solar-system/1022065/45 "2025-12-01T09:33:02Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The impact of the hypothetical Theia into the primordial Earth would have been a violent event for them to not just merge into a single body, instead producing Luna from ejecta at the edge of orbital stability about Earth’s sphere of influence, indicating that Theia must have been in an highly eccentric, overlapping orbit coming from the outer solar system 9or possibly even an extrasolar object although that is considered unlikely). Some people disagree that it was from the outer solar system, based on the composition of the two planets (Earth and Theia). > **[New Research Suggest Earth and Theia were Neighbors Before They Collided](https://www.universetoday.com/articles/new-research-suggest-earth-and-theia-were-neighbors-before-they-collided)** > > About 4.5 billion years ago, the most momentous event in the history of Earth occurred: a huge celestial body called Theia collided with the young Earth. How the collision unfolded and what exactly happened afterward has not been conclusively... > [@](#): > > Luckily, traces of Theia remain in rocks found on present-day Earth and the Moon, which scientists compare to determine whether they originated from Theia. This is precisely what Hopp and his colleagues did by examining iron isotopes in 15 terrestrial rocks and six lunar samples, comparing them with one another and with several meteorites. The ratios of these isotopes in a body can reveal where it formed, as scientists believe that isotopes of different elements were not likely to have been evenly distributed in the early Solar System. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-the-planets-in-our-solar-system/1022065.md?page=2)