Strange new object found at edge of Solar System

[harmonicaman]

<p>(OK, Bonzelite, I'll expand on my thoughts - but it's mere speculation and begs supporting evidence...)<br /><br />I think the ignition of a star and the ensuing Solar Wind are important developments in a new Solar System's creation. I would propose that this event causes fundamental changes to the orbital mechanics of the accretion disc and the newly forming planets. <br /><br />This change in the status quo of the accretion disc likely contributes to the creation of spherical Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud like debris fields and may be a common factor in Solar System formation.<br /><br />The Solar Wind's pressure, using our Sun as an example, is normally about 2-3 nanopascals (much less than a baby's breath); but can exceed 10 nanopascals during a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection). This pressure primarily effects the tiniest left over accretion disc debris (gas and dust) and the atmospheres of the inner (now rocky) planets1. <br /><br />Since this debris is mostly located in the plane of the accretion disc, as the Sun pushes it away, it would likely be perturbed (or captured) by other planets which also happen to lie in this orbital plane. <br /><br />This likely planetary perturbation would cause the debris to find new orbits which may occur outside the plane of the accretion disc. The debris finally settles in a new orbit where the pressure of the Solar Wind is balanced by the attraction of the systems gravity.<br /><br />This debris then collects with other expelled material and outer accretion disc particles to form the objects we see in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud.<br /><br />The total amount material in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud is thought to be greater than the Earth's mass but less than Jupiter's (from one web source).<br /><br />I believe we can account for the creation of spherical debris fields around Solar Systems if we carefully examine the effects of the Solar Wind on accretion discs during Solar System formation. <br /><br />1. The</p>

 

[bonzelite]

i follow that. very well thought out. <br /><br />

 

[yevaud]

<i>I think the ignition of a star and the ensuing Solar Wind are important developments in a new Solar System's creation. I would propose that this event causes fundamental changes to the orbital mechanics of the accretion disc and the newly forming planets.</i><br /><br />That's the "T-Tauri" phase of solar system development.<br /><br />http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~imamura/208/feb15/tauri.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[bonzelite]

i waver back and forth on the validity of accretion theory. on the one hand, i see it's possibility in the context of super-heated gas and matter, in close-proximity or density. i can see, perhaps, the popular idea of how the earth's moon was created out of such a super-heated cataclysm as being plausible.<br /><br />on the other hand, in freezing conditions of extreme distances from solar or tidal heating effects from a parent body, it would seem that no such accretion could ever happen. freezing dust and rocks will just bounce off each other or shatter to bits. nothing molten or sticky exists out there to clump or adhere freezing dust and rocks, even over eons of time. to make a planet in this fashion seems highly unbelievable. <br /><br />it seems to reason that spherical bodies such as planets and moons had to have originated from a super-heated or molten liquid state, condensing and then cooling into a gravitationally balanced spherical form, like giant molten water droplets. coronal mass ejections of matter, given enough matter, could hypothetically result in such an object. <br /><br />the inner 8 planets must have been heated to thousands of degrees Kelvin, perhaps millions of degrees, at the outset of their creation. at a time, perhaps all of the major planets accreted from individual primordial fusion processes. in this vein, i can sort of buy into that. <br /><br />freezing accretion? nope. i don't really believe that. <br /><br />it seems that we're relatively midway or late into the game of our solar system's existence. because no such primordial heat soup any longer exists, we are seeing and living among a fossilized echo of what it once was. so there is no telling how many bizarre and exotic things happened to place such objects where they are today. <br /><br /><br /><br />

 

[yevaud]

<i>it seems to reason that spherical bodies such as planets and moons had to have originated from a super-heated or molten liquid state, condensing and then cooling into a gravitationally balanced spherical form, like giant molten water droplets.</i><br /><br />Nope. It was dust, small particles and whatnot, all initially attracted together by Van Der Waals forces - accretion by gravitation, and hence heating as you mention - came later on. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[bonzelite]

<font color="yellow">Nope. It was dust, small particles and whatnot, all initially attracted together by Van Der Waals forces - accretion by gravitation, and hence heating as you mention - came later on.</font><br /><br />i'm with you on the heating element, but not quite vested in the gas-disk- fine-dust idea of accretion. even if you buy the clumping of the fine dust to ultimately form planets, it assumes this fine dust and gas hangs around the star long enough to even accrete at all. and it would assume that most of the planets are pretty much the same ages. <br /><br />as well, assuming all the planets are rocky, even the gas giants with their runaway super-atmospheres, how could such a small mass rocky planet like mars, at jupiter's distance, attract all of that mass to become a giant gas-vacuum-cleaner-attractor? and why did such giant planets not form in our solar system nearer the sun as we see by the truckloads in extrasolar systems, where often the planet is 3X the size of jupiter, is three feet away from it's sun, and orbits every month with fantastic angular momentum? these planets must have been hot to begin with, forming very rapidly. <br /><br />as well, could not protoplanetary disks be perturbed as well, then? look at some of the super jupiter planets out there and they're not all orbiting their sun in a circular, ecliptic-like path. so either it's accretion disk was grossly perturbed (by what?) during the planet's formation, or it simply did not form by accretion and is something else unknown. <br /><br />indeed, i don't have the answer! but it's fun to ask <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />