Solar System Formation refers to the process by which the Solar System, including the Sun, planets, moons, asteroids, and comets, developed and evolved from a primordial cloud of gas and dust. This process is believed to have begun about 4.6 billion years ago when a neighboring star’s explosion triggered the gravitational collapse of a region within a molecular cloud. As the cloud collapsed under its own gravity, it began to spin and flatten into a rotating disk.
In this protoplanetary disk, particles of dust and gas began to coalesce into larger bodies through a process called accretion. The central mass in the disk formed the Sun, while smaller clumps gradually merged to form the planets, moons, and other small solar system bodies. The inner solar system saw the formation of rocky planets like Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, while the outer regions allowed for the creation of gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn and ice giants like Uranus and Neptune.
The Solar System formation process involves complex interactions of physical forces, including gravity, electromagnetism, and kinetic energy, and it explains the arrangement and composition of the Solar System we observe today.
In the realm of low-viscosity protoplanetary discs (PPDs), our understanding of the formation of the Solar System is being challenged. Recent studies have shown that the Jupiter-Saturn pair, while migrating…