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Activity 1-Theories On The Origin of The Solar System

1) There are several competing theories for how the solar system formed, but scientists believe the overall mechanism involved a gas and dust cloud contracting under gravity to form the sun and planets. 2) As the cloud rotated slowly, it formed a disk around the central condensation that became the sun. Small condensations within this disk formed the planets and their satellites. 3) The young sun's energy then blew away the remaining gas and dust, leaving the solar system in its current configuration.

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196 views

Activity 1-Theories On The Origin of The Solar System

1) There are several competing theories for how the solar system formed, but scientists believe the overall mechanism involved a gas and dust cloud contracting under gravity to form the sun and planets. 2) As the cloud rotated slowly, it formed a disk around the central condensation that became the sun. Small condensations within this disk formed the planets and their satellites. 3) The young sun's energy then blew away the remaining gas and dust, leaving the solar system in its current configuration.

Uploaded by

baby shahida
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ARELLANO UNIVERSITY

Jose Abad Santos Campus, Pasay City


College of Education
Science Astronomy
Name ______________________ Date __________
Year/Course________________ Student No. ___________
MIDTERM
Activity 1-Theories of the Solar System

The origin of the Solar System


How did the Sun, planets and moons in the Solar System form? There is a surprising amount of debate
and several strong and competing theories, but do scientists have an answer?
What are the theories for the origin of the Solar System?
Any theory about how the Solar System came to be has to account for certain, rather tricky facts. We
know that the Sun sits at the center of the Solar System with the planets in orbit around it, but these
throws up five major problems:
1. The Sun spins slowly, and only has 1 percent of the angular momentum of the Solar System -
but 99.9 percent of its mass. Why is this?
2. Terrestrial planets have solid cores - how did they form?
3. What about the gas giant planets like Jupiter - were they formed differently? 
4. How did planetary satellites like the Moon come into being?
5. Bode's law states that the distances of the planets from the Sun follow a simple arithmetic
progression. Why should this be?

There have been many attempts to develop theories for the origin of the Solar System. None of
them can be described as totally satisfactory. We do believe, however, that we understand the overall
mechanism.

The Sun and the planets formed from the contraction of part of a gas/dust cloud under its own
gravitational pull and that the small net rotation of the cloud created a disk around the central
condensation. The central condensation eventually formed the Sun, while small condensations in the
disk formed the planets and their satellites. The energy from the young Sun blew away the remaining
gas and dust, leaving the Solar System as we see it today.

Theories Proponent: Explanation:

1.Descarte’s
Theory

2. Buffon
Theory
3. Kant’s
Theory

4. Laplace
Theory

5. Tidal
Theory

6. Eddy
Theory

7. Dust-cloud
Theory

8.
Planetisimal
Hyphotesis

9. Double
Star Theory

10.
Condensation
Theory

11.
Protoplanet
Theory
12. Accretion
Theory

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