• Question: Does gravity play a part in the making of our solar system?

    Asked by VeKz CimZaGrO to Alice, Bose, Christian, Emma, Steve on 16 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Emma Dean

      Emma Dean answered on 16 Mar 2016:

      Yes. The solar system began as a slowly spinning cloud of dust. Over time the the dust particles started to clump together because of gravity. This caused the cloud to spin faster and it began to form a disk shape. The cloud started to become hotter and denser in the centre and cooler on the disk edges. The dust cloud became clumpier. The centre became so hot and dense it started to burn and became our sun. The cooler clumps that formed away from the centre of the disk became the planets. Without gravity to cause all of the dust particles to start clumping together, our solar system wouldn’t have formed.

    • Photo: Benjamin Bose

      Benjamin Bose answered on 16 Mar 2016:

      Most definitely! Gravity is the main character in the story of our planet, our Solar System and in the formation of galaxies and clusters of galaxies.

      With respect to our Solar System, the Sun was ‘turned on’ because of the pull of gravity, the planets were formed from pieces of rock and dust because of this same pull, they move around the Sun because of this same pull. So basically everything in front of the curtain happens because of gravity.

      Behind the curtain, the other forces are constantly working hard to keep atoms together, to keep the Sun burning, to make the elements that we’re made of, to perhaps even be the cause of life itself – there wouldn’t even be a universe without the other forces!

      So finishing the analogy, like a play or a movie – gravity would be the main character who you see and know while the director, the producers, all the technicians behind set are the other forces who give gravity a stage to impress upon 🙂

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