[MUSIC]

We have just seen how the elements are

synthesized in stars. We are therefore ready
to form solar systems that are not
just based on hydrogen and
helium, but include all of
the elements in the periodic table.
Many generations of dying
stars have ejected
freshly synthesized matter
back into interstellar space.
But how can we use this widely
scattered matter to form
dense solar systems with planets?
If the ejected material was evenly
distributed in the universe,
this would be a hopeless task.
Fortunately, due to the force of gravity,
the matter is concentrated in galaxies,
such as our Milky Way.
And within the galaxies,
most of the matter is further
concentrated into molecular clouds.
The molecular clouds in
the Milky Way are enormous,
even when we observe them from the Earth.
But since they are also very faint, they
remain almost invisible to the naked eye.
If you have ever watched the sky
you are likely familiar with
the Orion constellation which lies
close to the celestial equator.
The three bright stars are also
known as Orion's belt.
They are, in fact, massive stars
within the Orion constellation.
If we zoom in and increase the brightness,
the underlying cloud becomes visible.
Here you may be able to see the Horsehead
Nebula, and up here is your Orion Nebula,
which is an active star forming region.
The newly formed stars make
this part of Orion very bright.
We cannot observe how our
own solar system formed, but
if we observe areas like this, we can see
how other systems form in a similar way.
The size of giant molecular clouds
may conveniently be measured in
units of light-years.
This cloud measures several
hundred light-years across.
Much bigger than the human
mind can comprehend.
Molecular clouds look very passive,
but in fact, they are highly dynamic.
The stellar winds from massive stars and
supernova explosions push
the gas in the cloud around,
at speeds up to several hundred kilometers

per second, a truly amazing speed.

But even at a hundred kilometers per
second it would take you a couple of
million years to get from here to here.
Therefore, the picture does not
change from one knot to the other,
giving us the false impression that we
are looking at something rather inactive.
However, if we could fast-forward
this picture a few million years,
we would be able to see that this
is indeed a very dynamic system.
We can use computer simulations
to fast forward this process.
What you see here is a simulation
of a giant molecular cloud,
similar in size to
the picture you just saw.
The simulation runs for
2 million years, and you can see that on
that time scale the cloud is very dynamic.
Note how newborn stars light up within
the cloud as the simulation runs.
Despite the fact that the gas is
highly concentrated in these giant
molecular clouds, we still need
to compress it by many orders of
magnitude to form a solar system.
Although gravity helped
us concentrating the gas,
the gas pressure works against gravity and
prevents the cloud from collapsing.
However, since these clouds are highly
dynamic systems, the gas sometimes becomes
compressed to a point where gravity
is stronger than the gas pressure.
The result is a runaway collapse,
resulting in star formation.
A famous example of star formation is
seen in this Hubble space image of
the Eagle Nebula.
The intense stellar winds from
a couple of massive stars have
created a bubble in the cloud.
The stellar winds not only
push the gas further and
further away from the star, through
a process known as photoevaporation,
it also compresses the gas to the point
where gravitational collapse is triggered.
This is exactly what we
need to form a new star.
Once a dense core is formed,
its gravity field will start to grow as it
attracts more and more gas and
thus further increases the gravity field.
This process of growth through
gravitational attraction is known
as accretion,
a term I will use several

times in the following.

If we zoom in on these pillars,
we can see how it works.
As the gas is pushed away, the newly
formed stars emerge from the gas.
Each of these small tentacle-like
structures contains a newborn
star at the tip.
Eventually, the gas will
clear around the young star.
Accretion will cease and the star will
begin its life as an independent object.
As the gas collapses toward the growing
star it will rotate faster and
faster, much like water running
out of a bathtub.
The rotation prevents all of the gas
from accreting directly to the star.
Instead, a rotating disk of gas and
dust is formed around the young star.
It is from these disks
that planets accrete.
The disc structure explains why all of
the planets of our solar system orbit in
the same plane around the Sun.
The diameter of the disk is typically
up to a few hundred astronomical units,
or about 1 million times less than
the diameter of the giant molecular cloud.
Astronomical telescopes cannot
resolve the disk around other stars.
They are
unfortunately too small.
So what you see here is therefore
an artist's illustration of
such a young solar system.
If we look at the disk edge on, we
can see how matter from the cloud is
falling in toward the disc.
Within the disc, angular momentum
is transferred outward and
most of the mass is drifting
inwards toward the star.
The illustration also shows some of
the processes that take place in the disc.
Note that the thickness of the gas disc
increases away from the star.
Within the disc, and
concentrated toward the midplane,
we find solids of different sizes.
Some of the particles which formed
during this very early stage have been
preserved in meteorites.
So let me introduce you to
the most common types.
In the hot gas, close to the star,
millimeter- and
centimeter-sized particles known
as CAIs condense out of the gas.
CAI is an acronym for

calcium-aluminum rich inclusions.

Calcium and aluminum are elements that
condensed at very high temperatures.
So we know that they must have formed
in a high temperature environment.
Here's an example of
a meteorite with CAIs.
It's the white irregular inclusions
that you see here and here.
Further out in the disc we find
millimeter to sub-millimeter sized
silicate spheres known as chondrules.
They seem to have crystallized as
freely orbiting molten droplets.
The droplets probably formed when
pre-existing dust balls were flash melted.
Unfortunately, the nature of the flash
heating process remains poorly understood.
Meteorites containing chondrules
are also known as chondrites.
They are the most common
type of meteorites.
The meteorite we are just
looking at is a chondrite.
If you look closely,
you can also see examples of small,
round chondrules within the meteorite.
In the next video,
I'll tell you much more about meteorites
and the information they provide us with.
So let me return to
the previous illustration and
explain what else is going on in the disc.
The disc is composed of dust and gas.
In the inner part of the disc close to
the star, temperatures were too high for
water vapor to form ice crystals.
Further out, enormous amounts of ice
crystals were available as building
stones for the planet growth.
As a result the outer planets
grew faster and bigger.
This had a very visible and significant
implication for today's solar system.
The gas in the disc was only present for
a few million years.
And unlike the inner planets, the outer
planets beyond the snow line grew big
enough to capture gas from
the disc while it was still there.
Therefore, these planets captured enormous
amounts of gas and became gas giants.
In here in the inner solar system,
the smaller rocky or
terrestrial planets,
including the Earth, formed.
As far as we know,
these planets are the only ones with
the possibility to harbor life.
Before we end this lecture on

how the solar system formed,

let's have a last look at
the accretion of the planets.
As I explained,
the terrestrial planets grew by
attracting solid material from the disc.
In a simpler version, a protoplanetary
core, would simply accrete dust,
chondrules and CAIs from the disc, until
the disc would be depleted of material.
But in reality the
process was probably more complex.
Modelling suggests that many
planetary embryos formed and
started sweeping up
the material from the disc.
And as the process continued the larger
planetary embryos consumed the small ones,
and in the last stages of
accretion we were left with a few
large planetary embryos that merged
to form the planets we know today.
We believe that one of
the last planetary embryos
that accreted to the proto-Earth
was probably Mars sized.
And as you can imagine,
accreting a Mars sized object to the Earth
resulted in a condition of
cataclysmic proportions.
As a result we shall see in a later video,
the presence of our moon was likely
a consequence of this event.
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