Birth of our Solar System

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Our solar system is estimated to have been born a little after 9 billion years after the Big Bang, making it about 4.6 billion years old. According to current estimates, the sun is one of more than 100 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy alone, and orbits roughly 25,000 light-years from the galactic core.

Many scientists think the sun and the rest of our solar system was formed from a giant, rotating cloud of gas and dust known as the solar nebula. As gravity caused the nebula to collapse, it spun faster and flattened into a disk. During this phase, most of the material was pulled toward the center to form the sun.

Below is an infographic explaining the solar system from the inside out!

Our solar system to scale from the sun to the most recently discovered dwarf planet Eris in astronomical units.
Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

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About cindeepthoughts

Just another earthling :)

Posted on June 27, 2012, in Earth, Moon, Space, Sun and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.

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