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GEOL 150 Earth Revealed - Winter 2014 Instructor: Kim Bishop Office: La Kretz Hall Rm 116 Phone: (323) 343-2409

Origin of the Earth and Solar System

email: kbishop@calstatela.edu

What is the Solar System?

Solar System
Sun Planets Moons Asteroids Meteors Comets

Our Solar System is defined as our Sun and the various objects that orbit around the Sun.

Our Sun at the center of the Solar System is one star of billions that make up the Milky Way galaxy. A galaxy is a huge, disk-shaped, rotating mass of billions of stars.

The Milky Way galaxy is one of billions of galaxies that exist within the Universe.

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1) The planets and other objects orbit the sun in approximately the same plane. There are important characteristics of the Solar System that need to be accounted for in a reasonable hypothesis for the origin of the Solar System What are these characteristics?

2) The planets and other objects orbit the sun in the same direction.

3) The planets revolve around their axes in the same direction as they orbit the sun

4) The 4 inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) are small and rocky compared to the 4 outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, & Neptune), which are large and gaseous.

Important Characteristics of the Solar System that need to be accounted for in a reasonable hypothesis for the origin of the Solar System 1) The planets and other objects orbit the sun in approximately the same plane. 2) The planets and other objects orbit the sun in the same direction. 3) The planets revolve around their axes in the same direction as they orbit the sun. 4) The 4 inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) are smaller and rocky than the 4 outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, & Neptune), which are large and gaseous.

Note that Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet, not a planet.

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The most widely accepted hypothesis for the origin of the Solar System is referred to as the Nebular Hypothesis

According to this theory, the solar system began as a huge cloud of slowly rotating gas and dust, known as a nebula.

Many nebulas are present in the universe and are recognized as having resulted from the explosion of a star.

Slowly, the nebula that formed our Solar System began to contract because of gravity

As the nebula contracted, it began to rotate faster. This caused the cloud to flatten into a disk-like shape. Most of the mass collapsed into the center.

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Eventually, the Sun developed in the center of the disk. The sun was sufficiently massive that the process of nuclear fusion began. Because of fusion, the Sun emits radiation (some of which is light), along with charged particles - protons and electrons. This emanation of rapidly moving charged particles from the Sun is known as the solar wind.

Collision of the solar wind particles with the particles away from the sun blew the lighter elements, mostly hydrogen and helium, in the disk away from the sun. The heavier elements were too heavy to be blown outward. Because most of the elements in the cloud orbiting the sun were lighter (Hydrogen and Helium), most of the material that was closer to the Sun was blown outward.

In time, the particles orbiting the sun were attracted to one another because of gravity and they began to coalesce (come together). Eventually, the growing bodies became the planets and other features of the Solar System.

The heavier elements, which were closer to the Sun, formed the 4 rocky inner planets, whereas the lighter elements formed the 4 icy and gaseous outer planets.

Artist depiction of early Earth forming from collisions

Scientists refer to this concept for the origin of the solar system as the Nebular Hypothesis

How old is the Solar System? There is strong evidence that the Solar System formed 4.5 billion years ago.

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Dont confuse the Nebular Hypothesis with the Big Bang Theory

The universe includes everything that we know that exists. This means not only our Sun, but all of the stars in the sky.

The Nebular Hypothesis explains the origin of the Solar System The Big Bang Theory explains the origin of the Universe. Evidence indicates the universe began 13.7 billion years ago.