Why the Great Separation Arose - an Answer to the Main Mystery of the Solar System

Do you know how the solar planets formedsystems and why are they so different? Astronomers have previously suggested that our space house appeared as a result of a strange split that passes through the solar system. Scientists have called schism the Great Separation. On one side of it are rocky planets - Earth and Mars, and on the other - the gas giants Saturn and Jupiter. These two groups of planets consist of different materials and elements and outwardly are completely different from each other. A study published in the journal Nature Astronomy offers an answer to the question of why this happened.

Scientists have finally found out why the planets of our solar system are so different

What is the Great Separation?

If you look closely at our solarsystem, to see the gap is not so simple, since it is in an empty space near Jupiter. Meanwhile, the differences between the planets on both sides of the Great Separation are truly enormous. For example, on the side closest to the Sun, planets and asteroids contain a relatively small amount of organic molecules, but on the other hand, everything consists of materials rich in carbon.

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Despite the fact that astronomers have long knownthat this boundary separates the two parts of the solar system, the question of how this happened, and why the materials from the internal and external parts of the solar system did not mix together, is very puzzling to scientists. In the past, Jupiter was considered the main hypothesis of the appearance of the Great Separation - but according to the results of computer modeling, the planet was not large enough to interfere with the flow of rocky material from which Earth and Mars formed independently.

Protoplanetary Disc Forms Around Young Stars

According to The Independent, according toFor researchers, the answer may be hiding in the birth of the solar system and the emergence of a young sun, when everything that surrounds our planet today existed in the form of a protoplanetary disk around a star.

A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disk of dense gas around a newly formed star, from which planets subsequently form.

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Scientists believe that the differences between the twogroups of planets began to form even before their formation. The most likely explanation for the differences in the composition of rocky planets and gas giants is that it arose from the internal structure of a protoplanetary disk of gas and dust. Astronomers often discover protoplanetary disks around young stars, and it is for this reason that they suggest that if one of them formed in our sun, it could create a Great Separation as a result. The fact is that the protoplanetary disk served as a barrier that pulled building materials to different parts of the early solar system, while continuing to form planets. However, some of the materials turned out to be outside the barrier - and we owe it to them that life appears on Earth, since they are carbon-rich materials, which made water and organic life appear.