![]() ![]() As these endlessly bumped and collided, they fractured or split or recombined in endless random permutations, but in every encounter there was a winner, and some of the winners grew big enough to dominate the orbit around which they traveled. Eventually the clumps grew large enough to be called planetesimals. Colliding dust grains formed larger and larger clumps. ![]() All over the inchoate solar system, the same was happening. This was the moment of conception for our planet. Out of the floating material that was left over, two microscopic grains floated close enough together to be joined by electrostatic forces. Virtually all of it-99.9 percent of the mass of the solar system-went to make the Sun. “About 4.6 billion years ago, a great swirl of gas and dust some 15 billion miles across accumulated in space where we are now and began to aggregate. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |