The Birth of a Solar System

Most astronomers believe that all the members of the solar system, from the giant Sun to the smallest asteroid, were born out of a vast, spinning cloud of gas and dust – the solar nebula. The process began 5 billion years ago with the formation of the Sun.

The planets and other objects formed from unused material. When the solar system was nearly complete, 500 million years later, just 0.0002 percent of the solar nebula’s original mass remained.

The planets began to form about 4.6 billion years ago. Astronomers think that each of the major planets came together from an initial, ring – shaped mass of material around the Sun.

As the planets formed, tiny particles stuck together to make grain – sized lumps, then pebbles and boulders, and eventually larger bodies called planetesimals.

Related posts:

What TV Shows are Aliens Watching Now? What Happened to our TV Shows?
If extraterrestrials were watching our TV shows, this is what they would be watching, depending on where they are in space. This concept is extremely interesting, because our TV shows are never lost, they are still being broadcasted in different areas of the universe. Waves travel nearly forever in space, unless an outside force acts on them.
Messages Sent into Space
Space messages tell about the biosphere, that includes the basic chemical compositions of the continents, oceans and atmosphere. The highest and lowest points of Earth and the surface strength of gravity are also listed in the space messages. Along with the relative sizes and ordering of the planets in our solar system, this message tells about the mass and radius of both our Sun and Jupiter. ...
How the Moon Influences the Earth
Although the moon is much smaller than the Earth, it still has an influence on its bigger companion. Just as the Earth’s gravity pulls on the Moon, the gravity of the Moon pulls on the Earth, stretching it into a slight oval. This distortion barely affects the solid landmasses, but it makes the oceans bulge on either side of the planet, producing the tides on either side of the planet. ...
Impact Craters
When a Metorite collides with Earth it can form an impact crater – a bowl – shaped hollow in the Earth’s surface. Space rocks have produced in this way throughout Earth’s life, especially when the planet was young, about 4 billion years ago. Space rocks do not have to hit Earth to have a devastating effect. On june 30, 1908, there was an explosion 3.5 miles up in Earth’s atmosphere, above...
Black Holes Explained
The most Bizarre objects in the Universe, black holes are aptly named – they emit no visible light at all. And yet, most black holes are the end state of the most brilliant objects in the cosmos; giant stars that go supernova. The super compressed core that remains after the explosion has such strong gravity that even light cannot escape it – so the object is black.
National Geographic: The Heavens 1995
The movements in the Heavens are interminable and consummate, and the ideal movement is the round one, which, unlike the natural up-and down-ward headways, can final interminably similar. As substances, heavenly figures have matter (aether) and a shape: it appears that Aristotle did see them as living creatures with a reasonable soul as their shape.
Planetary System (GER)
A planetary framework is a situated of gravitationally bound non-stellar questions in circle around a star or star framework. Ordinarily vocalizing, planetary frameworks portray frameworks with one or more planets, admitting that such frameworks may additionally comprise of figures for example predominate planets, space rocks, expected satellites, meteoroids, comets and planetesimals and addit...
Comic Microwave Background and the Big Bang
Electrons unite with protons and neutrons to structure particles, ordinarily hydrogen and helium. Light can at final sparkle. Gravity makes hydrogen and helium gas mixes to shape the goliath fogs that can come to be universe sized frameworks; more unobtrusive packs of gas ruin to structure the first stars. 
Phases of Venus
Parallel to the Venus Express Mission, ESA has initiated an observing campaign that incorporates a number of professional and amateur observers. Since the cameras onboard Venus Express have only a small field of view, ground based observations can provide important context information on Venus’s dense atmosphere as a whole.
Saturn and its Moons
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second most expansive planet in the Earth's planetary group, following Jupiter. Named following the Roman god Saturn, its galactic image (♄) speaks for the god's sickle. Saturn is a gas mammoth with a middle range something like nine times that of Earth. While one and only one-eighth the mean thickness of Earth, with its more impressive volume Sa...
Uranus Explained: Inside and Out
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-most vast planetary span and fourth-most impressive planetary mass in the Earth's planetary group. Uranus is comparative in arrangement to Neptune, and both are of offbeat substance structure than the more vast gas goliaths Jupiter and Saturn. Astrochemists in some cases place them in a marked classification called "ice goliaths". Ura...
Supernovas Explained
A supernova (shortened SN, plural SNe following supernovae) is a stellar outburst that is more enthusiastic than a nova. It's maintained /ˌsuːpərˈnoʊvə/ with the plural supernovae /ˌsuːpərˈnoʊviː/ or supernovas. Supernovae are greatly iridescent and create a blast of radiation that regularly briskly eclipses a whole universe, before blurring from perspective over some weeks or months. Aroun...
Filtering Starlight Shown Graphically
The color of planets depends on the spectrum of the star’s light, which astronomers can easily observe, and filtering of light by air and water, which the author and her colleagues have simulated based on the likely atmospheric composition and it’s own effects.
The Pioneer Plaque
The Pioneer plaques are a couple of gold-anodized aluminum plaques which were put ready the 1972 Pioneer 10 and 1973 Pioneer 11 space apparatus, offering a pictorial inform, on the off chance that either Pioneer 10 or 11 is captured by extraterrestrial existence. The plaques demonstrate the bare figures of a human male and female as well as a few images that are composed to give informative da...
NASA's Future Capsule
NASA has decided that the MPCV, or Multi-purpose Crew Vehicle, will be America’s next crewed spacecraft following the retirement of the space shuttle. The MPCV program is a refocus of the Orion Crew Vehicle Program, which has been in development since 2005.
Apollo CSM and LM Mission Comparison
The Apollo Command Service Module The Command/Service Module (CSM) was one of two spacecraft, along with the Lunar Module, used for the United States Apollo program which landed astronauts on the Moon. It was built for NASA by North American Aviation. The Apollo Lunar Module (LM), also known as the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lander portion of the Apollo spacecraft built for the US ...
Star Map - Southern Hemisphere September to February
Polar Star has sufficient body ability to ingest the elevated-controlled ice slamming normal to her operations. The shell plating and cohorted interior uphold structure are created from steel that has particularly great flat-temperature quality. The part of the body outline to slam ice is 1-3/4 creeps (45 mm) thick in the bow and stern areas, and 1-1/4 crawls (32 mm) thick amidships. The frame...
Mars World Map
In 1659 Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens, using an early telescope, drew the first sketch of a surface feature on Mars, a dark patch know today as Syrtis Major. More than three centuries later the mars global Surveyor is charting the entire planet. Data beamed from the orbiting surveyor have rendered a detailed and true-color map of this seemingly most Earthlike of planets.