How was our solar system created and what is going to happen in the

future??By: Joshua Wildman

By analyzing the radioactive decay of radioactive elements in the our solar systems meteorites, astronomers have said that the beginning of the Solar System can be tracked back to 4.6 billion years ago. This was when a gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud happened.

Molecular Cloud

The cloud collapsed for millions of years until it formed a rotating disk with a large central bulge. The disk would eventually form the planets, and out of the central bulge where most of the mass wound up, formed the sun.

Where the sun formed

The Planets

The four innermost planets in the Solar System; Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. They are separated from the outer planets by the asteroid belt. The inner planets are rocky and smaller than the outer planets. Mars has the longest year, 687 days.

Outer planets are mostly hydrogen and helium. They also have a lot of moons because they

have such a big gravitational force. Jupiter has 63 named natural satellites. Neptune has the longest year, and is the planet farthest away

from the sun, its year is 165 earth years.

The planets of our solar system(and Pluto, a dwarf planet)

About 5 billion years from now, Andromeda and the Milky Way will have completely combined to create a

single, football-shaped elliptical galaxy. The Sun will be an old star near the end of its lifetime. It and the solar

system likely will be about 100,000 light-years from the center of the new galaxy, 4 times further than the

current 25,000 light-year distance.

When we start to collide, it might look something like this.

And after we might look something like this.

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<http://www.solstation.com/stars/4planets.htm>.

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meteorites, analyzing the radioactive decay of radioactive elements in the, and astronomers have said that

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