Solar System formation

Solar System formation is the process by which the Sun, planets, and smaller bodies developed from a collapsing cloud of gas and dust. It produced a star surrounded by a disk where planetary material accreted.

Solar nebula: The rotating cloud of gas and dust from which the Sun and Solar System formed. Its collapse supplied the material that became the Sun and the protoplanetary disk.
Molecular cloud: A cold, dense interstellar cloud composed mainly of molecular hydrogen, where stars can form. The Solar System’s precursor cloud was part of this star-forming environment.
Terrestrial planet: A rocky planet composed primarily of silicate rocks and metals. Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars formed in the warmer inner disk.
Grand Tack hypothesis: A model in which Jupiter migrated inward and then outward after Saturn formed and caught up. It proposes a migration history that could help explain the small mass of Mars.
Protoplanetary disk: A rotating disk of gas and dust surrounding a young star, where planets can form. The Solar System’s planets assembled within this disk around the newly forming Sun.
Gravitational collapse: The inward contraction of matter under its own gravity when internal support cannot resist it. Collapse initiated the formation of the Sun and its surrounding disk.
Gas giant: A giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, with no solid surface like Earth’s. Jupiter and Saturn record the rapid acquisition of gas in the outer planetary system.
Nice model: A model of Solar System evolution in which the giant planets underwent orbital rearrangement after formation. It links later giant-planet migration to the present arrangement of distant small bodies.
Accretion (astrophysics): The growth of an astronomical body as it attracts and incorporates surrounding matter. Repeated collisions and mergers built solid bodies from dust and planetesimals.
Angular momentum: A conserved physical quantity describing rotational motion. Conservation of angular momentum helped flatten the collapsing cloud into a disk.

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