A powerpoint presentation by: Polly Adams, Maggie Aldworth, Avery Sheiner, and Elias Armao

The Birth Story of the Solar System  Lets rewind billion years. Our solar system is nothing more than a mere molecular cloud. The gravitational collapse of a small part of this cloud is what scientists believe was the origin of our modern day solar system.

 Most of the collapsing mass collected in the center, forming the sun, while the rest flattened into a protoplanetary disk out of which the planets, moons, asteroids, and other small Solar System bodies formed from the debris.

The Formation of the Sun! Most of the cloud from which the Solar System formed was made of hydrogen gas, but there was also a little bit of other stuff, such as oxygen, silicon, and carbon. Because of gravity, all of the gas wanted to concentrate in one place, but when the gas got closer to the axis of rotation, it started to rotate faster around that axis. it got so hot and dense that it could start generating energy through nuclear fusion of the hydrogen. At that moment, the Sun became a star.

Continued  The fast rotation of the gas meant that it could not all be concentrated in one place, and what happened instead is that the gas concentrated in a flat disk (like a pancake) with most of the material in the center. It got so hot and dense that it could start generating energy through nuclear fusion of the hydrogen. At that moment, the Sun became a star.

Everything was formed at the same time?  Like other stars, the sun is made primarily of carbon. When we explore outer space we are able to find some of the same materials that are believed to make up the center of our solar system. This is what leads us to believe that the sun and our solar system were formed at around the same time.

Formation of the Terrestrial Planets  The terrestrial planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars all mostly consist of rocky matter. These planets are all the four most inner planets in our solar system, and because of this is it has lead us to believe that these planets were formed at roughly the same time out of mostly the same types of materials.

Continued-  The gravity engulfing the matter that was orbiting around the newly created star, that we now call our Sun, molded several large clumps that were slowly formed and perfected to become the planets we have today.

Earth IS a Terrestrial Planet, so…  Like Mercury, Venus, and Mars, Earth is made up mostly of rock and was formed closer to the sun compared to the other Jovian gas giants. Once Earth was formed, it continued to evolve and become the “space ship” we exist on orbiting our sun and that we leave from to explore the universe and solar system we live in.

Formation of the Jovian Planets  Gas slowly condensed into a very dense, cold- semi solid formation made up of hydrogen and helium.  Some Jovian planets can become large enough to collapse on themselves, even though Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus have not (although they may sometime in the distant future)

Besides planets…  Along side all of the planets that formed around our sun, the formation of our solar system left over an abundance of planetary debris perpetually suspended in space.

Like the Kuiper Belt  The Kuiper Belt lies just beyond the orbit of Neptune and extends from roughly 30 to 50 AU as the outer region of our solar system. The belt mostly consists of asteroids and other cold rock forms in a disk shape around the solar system.

Pluto is an outlyer of the Kuiper Belt  Even though it was once considered the 9 th and final planet in our solar system, Pluto is now regarded by scientists as an outer and larger example of rock debris from the Kuiper Belt.

Continued  There was this change of definition because the last four planets orbiting the sun are gas giants, and Pluto is a cold, large asteroid that is caught in a gravitational pull around the sun like other planets and happens to be large enough to have it’s own moons: Nix, Charon, and Hydra.

The Outer Solar System… Each planet in our solar system started forming at roughly the same time. The outer reaches of the solar system, such as the asteroids of the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, mostly consists of space matter collected by gravity from the surrounding parts of the solar system. What is beyond this? You’ll have to wait for investigation 4! :D