ASTRO-110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Oort Cloud, Interstellar Cloud, Kuiper Belt
22 Sep 2020
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Document Summary
Planets are formed through seeds; the gaseous material being too spread out for gravity alone to clump it up. Material had to be clumped in some other way in order for gravity to start pulling it together. Basic process of seed formation is much like formation of snowflakes in clouds. I. e. condensation when the temperature is low enough, some atoms or molecules may bond together and solidify. Bc the temperature was higher near the sunk, the only materials that could condense were rock and metal. The first particles to condense were microscopic and orbited the sun in circular paths. Individual particles moved are nearly the same speed so collisions were very gentle and allowed particles to stick together. As the object grew larger, they began to attract other particles through gravity. The process of particles sticking together and growing larger accretion. Only the largest planetesimals could survive impacts with other.
