• Question: What is the oldest planet known to man?

    Asked by Zara :) to yoyehudi, Oli, Nina, Kerrianne, Ed on 4 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Oli Wilson

      Oli Wilson answered on 4 Nov 2017:

      Well, Earth is probably the simplest answer, but in terms of other planets Venus is probably the best bet. It’s the brightest planet we can see from Earth, thanks to its incredibly reflective clouds of sulphuric acid (yes, really), so people have known about it for thousands of years. Apparently there’s a record of it from Babylon (now Iraq) from 1600 BC, but Venus (as well as Jupiter) is very well-known in Australian Aboriginal culture too, and humans may have arrived in Australia over 65,000 years ago..! Maybe people have been aware of other planets for as long as we’ve been able to see them shining in the sky.

    • Photo: Kerrianne Harrington

      Kerrianne Harrington answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      To follow up on the great answer Oli has given, I read this question as ‘what is the oldest planet that exists’ and I didn’t really know. It looks like it’s a extrasolar planet called a really surprisingly boring name of ‘PSR B162026-b’:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_B1620-26_b

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