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~ 50 million years before formation of the Solar System 4.6 bya: If the Solar System formed in an Orion Nebula-like star-forming region, the most massive stars are formed, live their lives, die, and explode in supernova. One particular supernova, called the primal supernova, possibly triggers the formation of the Solar System. [19] [20 ...
Solar System dust includes comet dust, planetary dust (like from Mars), [4] asteroidal dust, dust from the Kuiper belt, and interstellar dust passing through the Solar System. Thousands of tons of cosmic dust are estimated to reach Earth's surface every year, [ 5 ] with most grains having a mass between 10 −16 kg (0.1 pg) and 10 −4 kg (0.1 ...
The nebular hypothesis is the most widely accepted model in the field of cosmogony to explain the formation and evolution of the Solar System (as well as other planetary systems). It suggests the Solar System is formed from gas and dust orbiting the Sun which clumped up together to form the planets.
Planetesimals that have survived to the current day are valuable to science because they contain information about the formation of the Solar System. Although their exteriors are subjected to intense solar radiation that can alter their chemistry, their interiors contain pristine material essentially untouched since the planetesimal was formed.
Diagram of the early Solar System's protoplanetary disk, out of which Earth and other Solar System bodies formed. The Solar System formed at least 4.568 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a region within a large molecular cloud. [b] This initial cloud was likely several light-years across and probably birthed several stars. [14]
The original gas and small dust particles have been dispersed or accumulated into planets. [14] Zodiacal cloud or interplanetary dust is the material in the Solar System created by collisions of asteroids and evaporation of comet seen to observers on Earth as a band of scattered light along the ecliptic before sunrise or after sunset.
The following is a list of Solar System objects by orbit, ordered by increasing distance from the Sun. Most named objects in this list have a diameter of 500 km or more. The Sun, a spectral class G2V main-sequence star; The inner Solar System and the terrestrial planets. Mercury. Mercury-crossing minor planets; Venus. Venus-crossing minor planets
The LIC is a warm tenuous partially ionized cloud (T ≈ 7000 K, n H + n H + ≈ 0.3 cm −3) surrounding the Solar System. [72] It streams at ≈ 26 km/s around the Solar System. [73] The heliopause is 100 to 150 AU from the Sun in the upstream direction that separates the interstellar medium from the heliosphere.