Posted on 03/09/2018 9:43:05 AM PST by Simon Green
Although planets surround stars in the galaxy, how they form remains a subject of debate. Despite the wealth of worlds in our own solar system, scientists still aren't certain how planets are built. Currently, two theories are duking it out for the role of champion.
The first and most widely accepted, core accretion, works well with the formation of the terrestrial planets but has problems with giant planets such as Uranus. The second, the disk instability method, may account for the creation of giant planets.
"What separates the ice giants from the gas giants is their formation history: during core growth, the former never exceeded [critical mass] in a full gas disk," wrote researchers Renata Frelikh and Ruth Murray-Clay in a research paper. The core accretion model
Approximately 4.6 billion years ago, the solar system was a cloud of dust and gas known as a solar nebula. Gravity collapsed the material in on itself as it began to spin, forming the sun in the center of the nebula.
With the rise of the sun, the remaining material began to clump together. Small particles drew together, bound by the force of gravity, into larger particles. The solar wind swept away lighter elements, such as hydrogen and helium, from the closer regions, leaving only heavy, rocky materials to create terrestrial worlds. But farther away, the solar winds had less impact on lighter elements, allowing them to coalesce into gas giants such as Uranus. In this way, asteroids, comets, planets, and moons were created.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
In before the jokes and puns start.
:o
How did my what form?
Who wants to know?
That’s private.
God made it . . . next question
Oh, mercy me oh my!
...like everyone else’s I expect.
Well, that’s a deep subject...................
Just like the rest of me did, in the womb.
I don’t know. But I’ve some understanding of how forms what comes out of it.
It started with an explosion of methane gas...
You mean this isn't about the founding of the Democrat Party???
Did you mean this?
(*)
best one so far
Oh dear
So there was a critical mass of gas in Uranus that didn't come out? Perhaps it should have taken Maalox.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryological_origins_of_the_mouth_and_anus
Lovely discussion on anal embryology
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