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    Solar System Formation

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    Sergiu Roman
    The standard model for the formation of the Solar System is the solar nebula hypothesis, where 4.5 billion years ago a large cloud of dust and gas collapsed and flattened into a rotating disk that gave rise to the Sun and planets. As the disk contracted and separated into rings, dust and debris accumulated through accretion into progressively larger objects, including Earth which formed approximately 4.54 billion years ago. During its formation, Earth's core separated from its mantle due to the sinking of heavy metals through the molten rock.

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    Solar System Formation

    Uploaded by

    Sergiu Roman
    20 views1 page
    The standard model for the formation of the Solar System is the solar nebula hypothesis, where 4.5 billion years ago a large cloud of dust and gas collapsed and flattened into a rotating disk that gave rise to the Sun and planets. As the disk contracted and separated into rings, dust and debris accumulated through accretion into progressively larger objects, including Earth which formed approximately 4.54 billion years ago. During its formation, Earth's core separated from its mantle due to the sinking of heavy metals through the molten rock.

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    Solar System formation

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    The standard model for the formation of the Solar System is the solar nebula hypothesis, where 4.5 billion years ago a large cloud of dust and gas collapsed and flattened into a rotating disk that gave rise to the Sun and planets. As the disk contracted and separated into rings, dust and debris accumulated through accretion into progressively larger objects, including Earth which formed approximately 4.54 billion years ago. During its formation, Earth's core separated from its mantle due to the sinking of heavy metals through the molten rock.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    20 views1 page

    Solar System Formation

    Uploaded by

    Sergiu Roman
    The standard model for the formation of the Solar System is the solar nebula hypothesis, where 4.5 billion years ago a large cloud of dust and gas collapsed and flattened into a rotating disk that gave rise to the Sun and planets. As the disk contracted and separated into rings, dust and debris accumulated through accretion into progressively larger objects, including Earth which formed approximately 4.54 billion years ago. During its formation, Earth's core separated from its mantle due to the sinking of heavy metals through the molten rock.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Solar System formation

    Main article: Formation and evolution of the Solar System


    See also: Planetary differentiation

    An artist's rendering of a protoplanetary disk

    The standard model for the formation of the Solar System (including the Earth) is the solar
    nebula hypothesis.[23] In this model, the Solar System formed from a large, rotating cloud of
    interstellar dust and gas called the solar nebula. It was composed
    of hydrogen and helium created shortly after the Big Bang 13.8 Ga (billion years ago) and
    heavier elements ejected by supernovae. About 4.5 Ga, the nebula began a contraction that may
    have been triggered by the shock wave from a nearby supernova.[24] A shock wave would have
    also made the nebula rotate. As the cloud began to accelerate, its angular momentum, gravity,
    and inertia flattened it into a protoplanetary disk perpendicular to its axis of rotation.
    Small perturbations due to collisions and the angular momentum of other large debris created the
    means by which kilometer-sized protoplanets began to form, orbiting the nebular center.[25]
    The center of the nebula, not having much angular momentum, collapsed rapidly, the
    compression heating it until nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium began. After more
    contraction, a T Tauri star ignited and evolved into the Sun. Meanwhile, in the outer part of the
    nebula gravity caused matter to condense around density perturbations and dust particles, and
    the rest of the protoplanetary disk began separating into rings. In a process known as
    runaway accretion, successively larger fragments of dust and debris clumped together to form
    planets.[25] Earth formed in this manner about 4.54 billion years ago (with an uncertainty of 1%)[26]
    [27][4][28]
     and was largely completed within 10–20 million years.[29] The solar wind of the newly formed
    T Tauri star cleared out most of the material in the disk that had not already condensed into
    larger bodies. The same process is expected to produce accretion disks around virtually all newly
    forming stars in the universe, some of which yield planets.[30]
    The proto-Earth grew by accretion until its interior was hot enough to melt the
    heavy, siderophile metals. Having higher densities than the silicates, these metals sank. This so-
    called iron catastrophe resulted in the separation of a primitive mantle and a (metallic) core only
    10 million years after the Earth began to form, producing the layered structure of Earth and
    setting up the formation of Earth's magnetic field.[31] J.A. Jacobs [32] was the first to suggest
    that Earth's inner core—a solid center distinct from the liquid outer core—is freezing and growing
    out of the liquid outer core due to the gradual cooling of Earth's interior (about 100 degrees
    Celsius per billion years[33]).

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