MIT: Scientists Estimate Solar Nebula's Lifetime at 4 Million Years

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MIT: Scientists Estimate Solar Nebula's Lifetime at 4 Million Years

Post by bystander » Thu Feb 09, 2017 7:56 pm

Scientists Estimate Solar Nebula's Lifetime
Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 2017 Feb 09

Study finds the swirling gas disk disappeared within the solar system’s first 4 million years.
[img3="By studying the magnetic orientations in ancient meteorites, an MIT team
has determined that the solar nebula — the vast of disc of gas and dust that
ultimately gave rise to the solar system — lasted around 3 to 4 million years.
Credit: NASA/JHU-APL
"]http://news.mit.edu/sites/mit.edu.newso ... fetime.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
About 4.6 billion years ago, an enormous cloud of hydrogen gas and dust collapsed under its own weight, eventually flattening into a disk called the solar nebula. Most of this interstellar material contracted at the disk’s center to form the sun, and part of the solar nebula’s remaining gas and dust condensed to form the planets and the rest of our solar system.

Now scientists from MIT and their colleagues have estimated the lifetime of the solar nebula — a key stage during which much of the solar system evolution took shape.

This new estimate suggests that the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn must have formed within the first 4 million years of the solar system’s formation. Furthermore, they must have completed gas-driven migration of their orbital positions by this time.

“So much happens right at the beginning of the solar system’s history,” says Benjamin Weiss, professor of earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences at MIT. “Of course the planets evolve after that, but the large-scale structure of the solar system was essentially established in the first 4 million years.” ...

Lifetime of the Solar Nebula Constrained by Meteorite Paleomagnetism - Huapei Wang et al
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