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In astronomy or planetary science, the frost line, also known as the snow line or ice line, is the minimum distance from the central protostar of a solar nebula where the temperature is low enough for volatile compounds such as water, ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide to condense into solid grains, which will allow their accretion into planetesimals.
Planetesimals beyond the frost line accumulated up to 4 M E within about 3 million years. [38] Today, the four giant planets comprise just under 99% of all the mass orbiting the Sun. [b] Theorists believe it is no accident that Jupiter lies just beyond the frost line. Because the frost line accumulated large amounts of water via evaporation ...
In geology, the frost line is the level down to which the soil will normally freeze each winter. By an analogy, the term is introduced in other areas. Frost line (astrophysics), a particular distance in the solar nebula from the central protosun where it is cool enough for hydrogen compounds such as water, ammonia, and methane to condense into solid ice grains.
Water is far more prevalent in the outer Solar System, beyond a point called the frost line, where the Sun's radiation is too weak to vaporize solid and liquid water (as well as other elements and chemical compounds with relatively low melting points, such as methane and ammonia). In the inner Solar System, planets, asteroids, and moons formed ...
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Most known large icy moons belong to giant planets, whose orbits lie beyond the Solar System's frost line; the remainder (such as Charon and Dysnomia) formed around dwarf planets such as Pluto and Eris, typically in large impacts not unlike the impact thought to have formed Earth's moon. In the case of icy gas giant satellites, an additional ...
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If the frost line of our Solar system is 2.7 AE, how can both Earth and Mars, which are further inside, have large amounts of water ice?--Roentgenium111 17:51, 12 September 2010 (UTC) Asteroid and comets impacts could have easily brought water-ice with them. Keep in mind that Earth is a dry planet that is only 1.5% water by weight.