36
$\begingroup$

(Yes I'm excluding Pluto from this the same way it was excluded for not being a planet)

Observing the planets orbit of the Sun they all seem relatively planar and roughly all orbit along the same plane.

Is this due to the way that our Solar system was formed or is this a physical phenomena observed in other systems?

enter image description here

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
2
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ To understand better, see this. $\endgroup$
    – Yashbhatt
    May 24, 2014 at 14:35
  • $\begingroup$ In addition to Yashbhatt's video, you may also find this one helpful. $\endgroup$
    – Cody
    Feb 8, 2017 at 19:18

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
26
$\begingroup$

In the protostar stage of the Sun, it was surrounded by a (spinning) gas cloud. This cloud behaved like a fluid (well, a gas is a fluid), so it flattened out into an accretion disk due to conservation of angular momentum. The planets eventually formed from the dust/gas in the disk from compression of the dust in the disk. This process won't end up moving the dust out of the plane (all the vertical force of gravity is toward the disk), so the final planet is in the plane too.

Why does an accretion disk have to be flat? Well, firstly, let's imagine the protostar and gas cloud before the accretion disk formed. Usually such a setup will have particles spinning in mostly one direction. The ones spinning in retrograde orbits will end up reversing themselves due to collisions.

In this gas sphere, there will be an equal number of particles with positive and negative vertical velocities (at a given point in time; due to rotation the velocity signs will flip). From collisions, eventually these will all become zero.

A particle revolving around a planet will always revolve such that the projection on the planet is a great circle. Thus we cannot have a particle with vertical velocity zero but with vertical position nonzero (as that would imply an orbit that isn't a great circle). So as the vertical velocity decreases, the orbit inclination decreases too. Eventually leading to an accretion disk with very little vertical spread.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
6
  • $\begingroup$ By "behaved like a fluid" you meant all of that gas tended to stick together? (covalent bonding) $\endgroup$
    – Yoda
    Feb 9, 2014 at 14:24
  • $\begingroup$ But to answer the part of the question about whether it's a special phenomena, this answer is implying that all solar systems are formed by spinning gas clouds. Why is that supposed be obvious? Non-spinning bodies have gravity. But they can't create solar systems because there's no counter-force to balance an orbit? Is it that as galaxies whip around, they spin things? That can't be true because systems spin in all kinds of different directions... what don't I get? $\endgroup$
    – Dave
    Dec 31, 2015 at 0:29
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ What decides the direction in which the accretion disk rotates? $\endgroup$
    – alphadog
    Apr 12, 2016 at 7:49
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @new-kid that would make an excellent new question, I'm very curious about this ! $\endgroup$
    – Nico
    Apr 12, 2016 at 9:42
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @DaveG Just by random chance, it is very unlikely that a randomly forming gas cloud will have angular moment of exactly zero. If it did, it would probably all accrete onto the star. In practise most clouds do have some angular moment, so they are spinning $\endgroup$
    – Martin Bonner supports Monica
    Mar 18, 2019 at 13:42

You must log in to answer this question.