Question

Describe how the solar system was formed

Answer 1

According to the lesson, the solar system was formed by the solar nebula that first started out as a slowly spinning huge cloud of cold gas and dust. The solar nebula was much larger than our solar system and gradually increased in speed. After the protosun was formed, the material in the solar nebula was contracted as the cloud was spinning faster causing the matter to flatten into a disk shape. “Instabilities in the rotating disk caused regions in it to condense into rings”, planetesimals (lesson 01:Inner Planets pg.5). Through accretion, small objects that were made from rock and ice were formed into these rings. As planetesimals attracted to each other by gravity, rocky planets were formed. The protosun is very hot, only rock, metal materials could withstand that temperature. The inner planets are composed mainly of rocky material and metals because of this. Large amounts of gas that were surrounded by small amounts of rock and ice caused the gas giants, outer planets to form. Leftovers of the formation of the Solar system created comments, meteorites, and asteroids.

Answer 2

Our solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago from a dense cloud of interstellar gas and dust. The cloud collapsed, possibly due to the shockwave of a nearby exploding star, called a supernova. When this dust cloud collapsed, it formed a solar nebula—a spinning, swirling disk of material.

At the center, gravity pulled more and more material in. Eventually the pressure in the core was so great that hydrogen atoms began to combine and form helium, releasing a tremendous amount of energy. With that, our Sun was born, and it eventually amassed more than 99 percent of the available matter.