The exact locations of these lines in our Solar System's past is hard to pin down. estimates put the Frost Line at somewhere around three times the initial Earth-Sun distance, while the Soot Line is significantly further in. Over thousands to millions to tens of millions of years, this will lead to the runaway formation of planets at whichever locations happened to accrue the most mass in one location the fastest.Ī schematic of a protoplanetary disk, showing the Soot and Frost Lines. Where slightly larger particles have already formed, or where smaller particles stick together to form larger ones, the gravitational force becomes slightly larger, as having an overdense region preferentially attracts more and more of the surrounding mass. In a disk of matter made up of tiny particles, the ones that are closer to the interior of the disk will revolve around the solar system's center at slightly higher speeds than the ones slightly farther out, causing collisions between particles as they pass one another in this orbital dance. The first factor is gravitation, which is always an attractive force. A planet like Jupiter or Saturn has enough gravity to hold onto the lightest elements like hydrogen and helium, but a lower-mass world like Earth does not. As soon as the central proto-star gets hot enough, it begins blowing off the lightest elements from the surrounding protoplantary systems. An illustration of a protoplanetary disk, where planets and planetesimals form first, creating.
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