How Are Solar Systems Made?

The Solar System, well... our planet system, was created six billion years ago and slowly evolved into its present configuration of a central star and revolving planets, rocks, comets and gases.

“It shows you exactly how a star is formed; nothing else can be so pretty! A cluster of vapour, the cream of the milky way, a sort of celestial cheese, churned into light.”—Benjamin Disraeli

Star and Planets Formation

There are various theories as to how star and planet systems are created. All stars and planetary systems began as dust clouds within a nebula. It then takes some sort of astronomical event that causes the nebula into its formation. Some theories say that supernovas (exploding stars) are one of the events that trigger this transformation.

After the Supernova... then what happens?

Let's say for this example that it was a supernova that caused the reaction. The event then triggers the nebular dust cloud into a spinning motion. While all the space dust is spinning, it collects more and more materials that are floating nearby. Eventually, this spinning creates a strong heat. Now for my favourite part, in the centre of the spiral a star begins to form.

A new star is born!

Surrounding this new star, there are still swirling dust clouds. Over time, some of the dust clouds come together and become something new. Kinda like building a snowman, the more dust that is added to the new rock, the bigger it gets, and thus more dust get collected. Eventually, the rock will pull in even more stuff with its new gravitational pull. This is how new planets are made in orbit.

“The stars are the land-marks of the universe."—Sir John Frederick

Quick Summary

The key to this formation is that once an event happens, the space dust absorbs that energy and turns it into a spinning motion... which causes the formation of a rotating spiral cloud... then it creates a solar system.

So... what is space dust again?

I like to call them space clouds ... but that might just be me. Technically, a nebula is a collection of space dust, gasses, and whatever finds itself floating around. Yup, a nebula is basically just a lot of space dust! Which means that Nebulas have the potential of becoming several star systems. These pictures just above are all of the Carina Nebula, which isabout 7,500 LY away from Earth and is found within the constellation, Carina.

All the Carina Nebula needs is for some sort of epic event to happen, like as I mentioned earlier... possibly a huge explosion. Once something epic happens then portions of a nebula can be transformed into stars. With stars, other rocks, and dust will orbit around them. In other words, this nebula right here is the beginning of another star system. It's pretty cool, right? We can look in a telescope and see what roughly was the beginning of our solar system... of our home. This is how it all began, floating space dust and gasses waiting for something epic to happen.

Hello. Nice to meet you! How are you? Hmm... this feels like a really one-sided conversation... why don't you follow me on social media so I can get to know you too!

About the Author

I started blogging about two years ago and my collection of blogs and articles is getting pretty impressive. I’ve taken online classes for writing and even some classes about the art of blogging itself. It would be really awesome if you join the adventure and maybe even help me think of what to write about next. If you would like to submit some feedback or ideas, you can always tweet me on twitter.

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Work Cited

Anton. “19 Best Inspirational Quotes and Phrases about Stars in the Sky.” Spacequotations.com, 13 Feb. 2019, spacequotations.com/quotes-about-stars/.

“NASA.” www.nasa.gov/.