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Pierre-Simon Laplace, one of the originators of the nebular hypothesis. Ideas concerning the origin and fate of the world date from the earliest known writings; however, for almost all of that time, there was no attempt to link such theories to the existence of a "Solar System", simply because it was not generally thought that the Solar System, in the sense we now understand it, existed.
The W51 nebula in Aquila - one of the largest star factories in the Milky Way (August 25, 2020). Star formation is the process by which dense regions within molecular clouds in interstellar space, sometimes referred to as "stellar nurseries" or "star-forming regions", collapse and form stars. [1]
This model posits that, 4.6 billion years ago, the Solar System was formed by the gravitational collapse of a giant molecular cloud spanning several light-years. Many stars, including the Sun, were formed within this collapsing cloud. The gas that formed the Solar System was slightly more massive than the Sun itself.
The amount of gas a super-Earth that formed in situ acquires may depend on when the planetary embryos merged due to giant impacts relative to the dissipation of the gas disk. If the mergers happen after the gas disk dissipates terrestrial planets can form, if in a transition disk a super-Earth with a gas envelope containing a few percent of its ...
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 first eon in Earth's history, the Hadean, begins with the Earth's formation and is followed by the Archean eon at 3.8 Ga. [2]: 145 The oldest rocks found on Earth date to about 4.0 Ga, and the oldest detrital zircon crystals in rocks to about 4.4 Ga, [34] [35] [36] soon after the formation of the Earth's crust and the Earth itself.
Telescopic observations resulted in the discovery of moons and rings around planets, and new planets, comets and the asteroids; the recognition of planets as other worlds, of Earth as another planet, and stars as other suns; the identification of the Solar System as an entity in itself, and the determination of the distances to some nearby stars.
3.0 billion years (10.8 billion Gya): Formation of the Gliese 581 planetary system: Gliese 581c, the first observed ocean planet and Gliese 581d, a super-Earth planet, possibly the first observed habitable planets, form. Gliese 581d has more potential for forming life since it is the first exoplanet of terrestrial mass proposed that orbits ...