Origin of solar system

 A solar system consists of a collection of objects orbiting one

or more central stars.
 All solar systems sta out the same way. They begin in a
cloud of gas and dust called a nebula.
Nebulae are some of the most beautiful objects that have
been photographed in space.
 They have vibrant colours from the gases and dust they
contain, and brilliant twinkling from the many stars that have
formed within them .
The gas consists largely of hydrogen and helium, and the dust
consists of tiny mineral grains, ice c stals, and organic pa icles.
Step 1: Collapse a Nebula
 A solar system begins to form when a small patch
within a nebula (small by the standards of the
universe, that is) begins to collapse upon itself.
 Exactly how this sta s isn’t clear, although it
might be triggered by the violent behaviour of
nearby stars as they progress through their life
cycles.
 Energy and matter released by these stars might
compress the gas and dust in nearby
neighbourhoods within the nebula.
 Once it is triggered, the collapse of gas and dust
within that patch continues for two reasons.
 One of those reasons is that gravitational force pulls
gas molecules and dust pa icles together.
 But early in the process, those pa icles are ve
small, so the gravitational force between them isn’t
strong.
 So how do they come together?
 The answer is that dust rst accumulates in loose
clumps for the same reason dust bunnies form under
the bed static electricity.
 Given the role of dust bunnies in the early histo of
the solar system, one might speculate that an
accumulation of dust bunnies poses a substantial
risk to one’s home.
 Step 2: Make a Disk with a Star at Its
Centre
 As the
begins small
to patch
form from within a
materialnebula
drawn condenses,
into the a star
centre of the
patch, and the remaining dust and gas settle
protoplaneta disk that rotates around the star. into a
 The disk is where planets will eventually form (upper left).
 Origin of Ea h & the Solar System 7 protoplaneta disk,
and (upper right) is an actual
surrounding the star HL Tauri. protoplaneta disk
 Notice the dark rings within the HL Tauri protoplaneta
disk.
and These
debris are
by gaps formed
incipient by
planets, the collection
called of dust
protoplanets, as
they orbit the star.
 There is an analogy for this in our own solar system,
because the dark rings are akin to the gaps
of Saturn (lower left), where moons can be found. in the rings
 Step 3: Build Some Planets
 planets can be classi ed into three categories based on what
they are made of .
 Terrestrial planets are those planets like Ea h, Mercu ,
Venus, and Mars that have a core of metal surrounded by rock.
 Jovian planets (also called gas giants) are those planets like
Jupiter and Saturn that consist predominantly of hydrogen
and helium.
 Ice giants are planets such as Uranus and Neptune that
consist largely of water ice, methane (CH4) ice, and ammonia
(NH3) ice, and have rocky cores.
 Often, the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune are grouped
with Jupiter and Saturn as gas giants; however, Uranus and
Neptune are ve di erent from Jupiter and Saturn
 These three types of planets are not mixed together randomly
within our solar system.
 Instead they occur in a systematic way, with terrestrial
planets closest to the sun, followed by the Jovian planets and
then the ice giants.
 Smaller solar system objects follow this arrangement as well.
 The asteroid belt contains bodies of rock and metal.
 Bodies ranging from metres to hundreds of metres in
diameter are classi ed as asteroids, and smaller bodies are
referred to as meteoroids.
 In contrast, the Kuiper belt (Kuiper rhymes with piper), and
the Oo cloud (Oo rhymes with so ), which are at the outer
edge of the solar system, contain bodies composed of large
amounts of ice in addition to rocky fragments and dust.
 Pa of the reason for this arrangement is the frost line
(also referred to as the snow line).
 The frost line marks the division between the inner
pa of the protoplaneta disk closer to the sun,
where it was too hot to permit anything but silicate
minerals and metal to c stalize, and the outer pa of
the disk fa her from the sun, where it was cool
enough to allow ice to form.
 As a result, the objects that formed in the inner pa of
the protoplaneta disk consist largely of rock and
metal, while the objects that formed in the outer pa
consist largely of gas and ice.
 The young sun blasted the solar system with raging
solar winds (winds made up of energetic pa icles),
which helped to drive lighter molecules toward the
outer pa of the protoplaneta disk
Rules of the Accretion Game
 The objects in our solar system formed by
accretion.
 Early in this process, pa icles collected in u y
clumps because of static electricity.
 As the clumps grew larger, gravity became more
impo ant and collected clumps into solid masses,
and solid masses into larger and larger bodies.
 If you were one of these bodies in the early solar
system, and pa icipating in the "accretion game"
with the goal of becoming a planet,
 you would have to follow some key rules:
 Keep your velocity just right. If you move too fast and
collide with another body, you both smash up and have to
sta again. If you move slowly enough, gravity will keep
you from bouncing o each other and you can grow larger.
 Your distance from the Sun will determine how big you
can get. If you are closer, there is less material for you to
collect than if you are fa her away.
 To begin with, you can only collect mineral and rock
pa icles. You have to grow above a ce ain mass before
your gravity is strong enough to hang onto gas molecules,
because gas molecules are ve light.
 As your mass increases, your gravity becomes stronger
and you can grab material from fa her away. The bigger
you are, the faster you grow.
You would also have to watch out for some dangers
 In the early stages of the game, the protoplaneta disk is
turbulent, and you and other objects can get thrown into
di erent orbits or at each other. This might be a good thing, or it
might not, depending on how the rules above apply to you.
 If the game progresses to the point where there is no more
material within your reach and you are not yet a planet, then it's
game over.
 If you slow down too much (e.g., from bumping into other
objects), you could spiral into the Sun (game over).
 If another planet gets big enough, it can: o Rip you apa and
then swing the pieces around so fast that for the rest of the
game you collide too hard with other pieces to grow any bigger
(game over) o Fling you out of the solar system (game over) o
Grab you for itself (game over) o Trap you in an orbit around it,
turning you into a moon (game over, and incredibly humiliating).
 Winners and Losers
 The outcome of the game is evident .
 Today eight o cial winners are recognized, with Jupiter
taking the grand prize, followed closely by Saturn.
 Both planets have trophy cases with more than 60 moons
each, and each has a moon that is larger than Mercu .
 Prior to 2006, Pluto was also counted a winner, but in 2006 a
controversial decision revoked Pluto’s planet status.
 The reason was a newly formalized de nition of a planet,
which stated that an object can only be considered a planet if
it is massive enough to have swept its orbit clean of other
bodies.
 Pluto is situated within the icy clutter of the Kuiper belt, so it
does not t this de nition.
 Pluto’s suppo ers have argued that Pluto should have been
grandfathered in, given that the de nition came after Pluto
was declared a planet, but to no avail.
 Pluto has not given up, and on July 13, 2015, it launched an
emotional plea with the help of the NASA’s New Horizons
probe. New Horizons sent back images of Pluto’s hea .
 On closer inspection, Pluto’s hea was discovered to be
broken.
 The Accretion Game and the Solar System
Today
The rules and dangers of the planet-forming game help to
explain many features of our solar system today
 Proximity to the sun explains why the terrestrial planets are
so much smaller than the gas giant and ice giant planets.
 Mars is smaller than it should be, given the rule that distance
from the sun determines how much material a body can
accumulate, and this can be explained by its proximity to
Jupiter. Jupiter’s immense gravity inte ered with Mars’
ability to accrete.
 Fu her evidence of Jupiter’s inte erence is the debris eld
that forms the asteroid belt. From time to time, Jupiter still
ings objects from the asteroid belt out into other pa s of
the solar system, some of which have collided with Ea h to
catastrophic e ect.
 The Kuiper belt is an icy version of the asteroid belt,
consisting of fragments left over from the early solar system.
 The material in the Kuiper belt is scattered because of
Neptune’s gravity. From time to time, Jupiter inte eres here
as well, inging Kuiper belt objects toward the sun and into
orbit.
 As these objects approach the sun, the sun causes dust and
gas to be blasted from their su ace, forming tails. We know
these objects as comets.
 Comets may also come from the Oo cloud where
gravitational forces from outside of the solar system can hurl
objects from the Oo cloud toward the sun.
 NEBULAR hypothesis OF LAPLACE

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