Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The first step toward a theory of Solar System formation and evolution was the general acceptance of heliocentrism, which placed the Sun at the centre of the system and the Earth in orbit around it. This concept had been developed for millennia ( Aristarchus of Samos had suggested it as early as 250 BC), but was not widely accepted until the ...
The most widely accepted model of planetary formation is known as the nebular hypothesis.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.
The Solar System [d] is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. [11] It formed about 4.6 billion years ago when a dense region of a molecular cloud collapsed, forming the Sun and a protoplanetary disc.
The nebular hypothesis of solar system formation describes how protoplanetary disks are thought to evolve into planetary systems. Electrostatic and gravitational interactions may cause the dust and ice grains in the disk to accrete into planetesimals .
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.
Star formation is the process by which dense regions within molecular clouds in interstellar space, ... Formation and evolution of the Solar System;
The "Mars problem" is a conflict between some simulations of the formation of the terrestrial planets which end with a 0.5–1.0 M E planet in its region, much larger than the actual mass of Mars: 0.107 M E, when begun with planetesimals distributed throughout the inner Solar System. Jupiter's grand tack resolves the Mars problem by limiting ...
The Chamberlin–Moulton planetesimal hypothesis was proposed in 1905 by geologist Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin and astronomer Forest Ray Moulton to describe the formation of the Solar System. It was proposed as a replacement for the Laplacian version of the nebular hypothesis that had prevailed since the 19th century.