MIRLIN Star/Planet Formation Page(All animation stills are courtesy of AnimAlu Productions. Click on the images to see a larger, 1024x768 version.)Click here to grab a 4 MB, 320x240 MPEG of the star/planet formation process. There is no audio or any captions in the movie, so you'll have to refer to this page to figure out what is going on.
All stars form from clouds of gas and dust which roam our galaxy. Eventually, gravity causes the cloud to collapse; since the cloud is spinning, material falls in along the "poles" faster than it does near the "equator". This flattening results in a disk-like object.
Material slowly wends its way into the center of this disk, forming a new star. While the star continues to grow, lumps form in the disk which will ultimately become planets.
The disk eventually thins as more material falls onto the star and the protoplanets. A hole in the disk near the star forms as material is completely incorporated into the star and planets.
Now fully formed planets exist within the hole, even as new planets are still under construction in the outer parts of the disk.
Ultimately, the remaining dust clears completely, leaving a fully formed solar system like our own.
For questions about this page please contact: Dr. Michael Ressler (Michael.E.Ressler@jpl.nasa.gov) |
