• Question: do you think it could be possible to have life on pluto?

    Asked by cerys to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 15 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      It would be very unlikely. Life needs some kind of energy source to be able to survive, and there would be so little energy on pluto the lifeforms would need to be really hardy.

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      Life needs two main things – liquid, and energy. Everything else it can work with what it has got.

      To get liquid water, you need temperatures between 0 and 100 degrees. But Pluto is so far away from the sun, it is -230 degrees. No chance of liquid water then, or liquid anything else, because all liquids and most gases are frozen at this temperature too.

      Energy is needed from the sun, and the sun can only heat Pluto by 7 degrees more than empty space, so there’s not much for life to work with.

      So Pluto is probably the last place we will ever find life in the solar system, if ever 🙁

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      Not likely. It’s way too cold, small and far from the Sun.

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      Pluto is really cold, and really far away from the sun. So no, I don’t think so.

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