Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 3/14/2008

Question
In the formation of the solar system, how can the nebular gas condense to form rocks, the precursor of planets?

Answer
Hi,
Very interesting question, that sadly has few answers to be easily found on the web.

What many people fail to understand is that the sun is a 3-4th generation star.

It was formed in a stellar nursery like the one presently seen in "M16 Eagle nebula" by the hubble space telescope.

Or say the Pleades cluster of hot young stars still embedded in amniotic gas.

The sun formed out of the debri of a progenitor supernova.

All the elements higher up on the periodic table, that we see around us, were "cooked" up in the firestorm of that supernova, and some (below iron) were formed even earlier deep within the star BEFORE the supernova happened.

Supernovae disperse these elements (non-gaseous as well as gaseous) thruoughout interstellar space as "shock waves of high speed matter.

These interact with nearby gas clouds (as in M16) to trigger fresh star formation (as in case of the sun). These 3-4th gen stars have matter in their systems (within the main star as well as the planets), that was NOT indeigenous to the system but cannibalised from the debri of a nearby supernova.

The water (hydrogen & oxygen), the silicates, the Nitrogen, iron, nickel cobalt gold you name it, all came from that supernova (1 or more). The sun is still only burning hydrogen and forming helium! The helium flash is yet to occur for it.

So the solid "dust" out of which the terrestrial planets formed,  "WAS LREADY THERE" when the accretion disk was whirling around the proto sun!!

hope that suffices!

Please do rate the answer.

Jayen