FIGURE 1.15 Forming sold nthe Solar System, and from supernova explosions, Geologists divide the materials, formed from these atoms and molecules into twoclasses. Volatile rmaterials—sich as hydrogen, helium, methane, ammonia, water, and carbon dioxide—can exist as gas at the Earth's sur face. Under the pressure and temperature conditions of regions in the protoplanetary disk close to the Sun, all volatile material remained in a gaseous state, Bur beyond a certain distance called the fas ine, volatiles froze to form ee, (Note again that we don't limituse ofthe word ie for frozen water alone.) Refractory mate rials are those that melt only at high temperatures. These are the clements which, in the coldness of space, solidify to form solid soot-sized particles of dust. In the protoplanetary disk, some of this dust consisted mostly of metal, but a lage portion of the dust formed in this way contained molecules of silicon and oxy- igen bonded to various metal atoms. We'll see in Chapter 5 that such materials are known as silicate minerals and that they form most ofthe rock of the Earth, so chumps of silcate-mineral dust were rockelike in character. Refractory materials could remain solid in the region ofthe protoplanetary disk close to the Sun. Initially, the protoplanetary disk may have been fairl homogeneous, meaning that it had much the same composi tion throughout, and most volatiles were frozen. But when the (6) The dis thn evolved into revluing ground of brs Sun became a nuclear inferno, the solar wind (the stella ‘wind produced by our Sun) evaporated volatile materials and blew them outward, to distances beyond the frost line. Consequently, the inner part of the protoplanetary disk ended up with higher concentrations of dust, whereas the outer portions ended up with higher concentrations of ice. As this was happening, gravity caused the gas, dust, and. ice of the disk to separate into a series of concentric rings in which density exceeded that of the space between the rings. How did these dusty, icy, and gassy sings transform into planets? Even before the proto Sun ignited, the material of the surrounding rings began to champ and bind together due to gravity (Fig 145). First, sootsized particles merged into sand-sized grains. ‘Then these grains stuck together to form grainy basketball-sized blocks, which in turn collided. Ifthe collision was siow, the blocks stuck together or simply bounced apart. If the collision was fist, ‘one or both of the blocks shattered, producing smaller fragments that recombined later, Eventually, enough blocks coalesced to form planetesimals, solid bodies whose diameter exceeded about 1 km. Because of their mass, planetesimals exerted enough, {gravitational attraction to pullin other objects that were neaeby. Figuratively, planetesimals acted like vacuum cleaners, sucking in small pieces of dust and ice as well as smaller planetesimal that ay in their orbit, and in the process they grew progressively larger astronomers refer to this process of planetary growth as asretion Eventually, victors in the competition to attract matter grew into _protoplanets, bodies approaching the size of today’s inner planets Once a protoplanet succeeded in incorporating virtually all the debris within its obit, it became a full-fledged planet. arly stages in the planet forming process probably occurred, very quickly—some computer models suggest that taken less than 1 million years to go from the dust-and-gas may have WeAreallMade ofStardust 33Gass Pe ea Seat a ee ed 3 Pea eer ea the disk 1. Forming the Solar System, according to a na ee cae ect eae Cee Cuneo eee eee PA / Se ae ea Planetesimals grow by continuous SNe ee eee? cere) Pol cr kame Cee rey eas poet Ty Jiterfor heats up and becomes soft ela parents Peering Ceete = —_ iad ust” (particles of refractory materials) concentrates in the inner eer oo Se eee ea er eee ee ea coe crneee cere ecris " ods reece nes Penna sue 9. Eventually, the atmosphere develops from volcanic gases. When the Earth becomes cool enough, moisture condenses and rains to fill the Uae gastage to the large planetesmal stag. Planets may have grown, from planctesimals over the course of the next few million years. In the inner orbits, where rings ofthe protoplanetary ds consisted mostly of dust (refractory materials}, small terest planets composed mostly of rock and metal formed, The outer ng of the protoplanetary disk, in contrast, contained huge volumes of volatile materials, Protoplanets formed in the outer sings gathered up these volatile materials to form the giant planets. Any refractory materials in these planets sank to the center, s0 these planets consist of a small refractory (metal and rock) ball surrounded by very thick shells of volatile materials {in the form of gas, liquid, orice. When did the planets form? As we'll see later in the book, rocks now exposed on # younger than the Solae System. But certain meteorite, objets that have fallen to the Earth from space (see Chapter2), appear to be lefover planetesimals. Using dating techniques intro- duced in Chapter 12, geologists have determined that some smaterials in these meteorites formed as long as 4.57 billion years ago, and consider that date to be the birth date of the Solar System. This date means thatthe Solar System formed bout 9 billion years after the Big Bang and is only about a third as old as the Universe. surfice of the Barth are much Differentiation of the Earth and Formation of the Moon ‘When planectesimals frst formed, they had a faiely homoge- neous distribution of material throughout because the smaller pieces from which they formed all had much the same composi ton and accreted in no particular order. Bue lage planetesimals, did not stay homogeneous for long because they begen to heat FIGURE 1.16 Differentiation ofthe Earthsintrr. (a) Early on, the Earth was aity ) 36 CHAPTER 1 Cosmology and the Birth of the Earth ‘up inside. The heat came primarily from three sousees: the heat produced by collisions (similar to the hest produced when you bang on a nail with a hammer and they both get warm); the heat produced when matter squeezes into a smaller volume (imma to the heat produced wher you compress air with a pump); and, the heat produced by the decay of radioactive elements (ilar to the heat prodiaced by a nuclear power plant), In bodies whose temperature rose sufficiently to cause internal melting, denser ‘metals (mostly iron) separated out and sank to the center of the body, whereas lighter rocky materials (mostly silicate minerals) remained ina shell surrounding the center. By this process, called differentiation, protoplanets and large planetesimals developed internal layering early in their history (Fig. 116). As we will see later, che central ball of metal constitutes the body's cre and the ‘outer, rocky shel constitutes its mans, Recent studies suggest that the terrestrial planets had differentiated by about 456 Ga, In the early days of the Solar System, planets continued to bbe bombarded by meteorites even after the Sun had ignited and differentiation had occurred. Bombardment also contributed 0 heating the planets, Most geologists favor a model in which a particularly large collision between the Earth and a large plan ctesimal or protoplanet at about 4.5 Ga produced our Moon, ‘Moon formation happened because the collision was so cata~ clysmic that much of the colliding body disintegrated and evap- crated, along with a large part of the Earth's mantle. A ring of debris formed around the remaining, now-molten Earth. This ‘ing quickly coalesced by accretion to form the Moon, When first formed, the Moon oxbiced much closer tothe Earth than it does today. Not all moons in the Solar System neces sasily formed in this man- nes, however. Some may have independent Did you ever wonder ifthe Moon sas old as the Earth? been {6} Theron accumulated atthe centr “on09 ofthe planet ofr 2 metalicprotoplanets or comets that were captured by a larger planets grav- ity, Sporadic heavy bombardments of planets by meteorites continued ‘until about 3.9 Ga, ‘These bom- bardments may have pulverized and heated planetary surfaces Rarer, but stil significant, impacts left craters on planets Making the Earth Round Small planetesimals were jagged or irregular in shape, and small asteroids today have irregular shapes, Planets, on the other hand, are more or less spherical. Why? Simply put, when a protoplanet gets big enough, and becomes warm enough inside, gravity can change its shape. To picture how, imagine a block of cheese warm- ing in an oven. As the cheese gets softer and softer, gravity causes it to spread out in a pancake-like blob. This model shows that gravitational force alone can cause material to change shape if the material has become soft enough. Now let’s apply this, model to planetary growth. “The rock composing & small planetesimal remains cool and. strong enough so that the force of gravity alone cannot cause the rock to flow. But once a planetesimal grows beyond a ce tain critical size (about 300 to 500 kin in diameter), its inte- rior becomes warm and soft enough to low simply in response to gravity. As a consequence, protrusions are pulled inward toward the center so that the planetesimal re-forms into a spe- cial shape—a sphere—that permits the force of gravity to be neatly the same at all points on its surface, for in a sphere, mass is evenly distributed around the center Forming the Ocean and Atmosphere Unlike the other terrestrial planets, the Earth today has an ocean of liquid water and an atmosphere that consists pri sarily of molecular nitrogen (N,) and molecular oxygen (O)). ‘Where did the ocean and atmosphere come from? Let's take a brieflook at how these entities, without which life as we know it ould not exist, came to be ‘When the Earth frst formed, its atmosphere probably con- sisted mostly of molecular hydrogen and helium. Butasthe planet warmed, the temperature ofthese gases increased and the atoms were able to move so fast that, like rockets, they escaped the pull of gravity and were blown away from the Easth by the solar wind. Gradually, they were replaced by gases released from erupting wolca- noes. ‘These gases (volatile materi- als) were originally bonded to solid materials of the Earth's mantle But when portions of the man- tle melted to produce molten rock that rose to the surface, the vola- tiles separated from the solids and bubbled out. Comets bombarding the Earth may have brought in additional gases. The atmosphere ‘volved into one consisting mostly of water, carbon dioxide (CO), ammonia, and methane—all gases released by “outgassing” of the Earth’ interior. You would suffo~ «ate instantly if you were to breathe this ealy atmosphere. ‘When the Earth cooled suf ficiently for water to condense (Change its state from gas to liq uid), rain fell and the oceans accumulated. The concentration of water in the atmosphere decreased substantially as a consequence. ‘The CO, from the atmosphere then dissolved in the water and precipitated into solids that settled out of the ocean and eventually became ‘rapped in the crust as rock, As a result, the concentration ‘of CO, diminished substantially. Because it does not react, with other Earth materials, N, remained in the atmosphere and eventually became the dominant component of the atmo- sphere, Only later, after the appearance of organisms capable ‘of carrying out photosynthesis, an O,,-generating reaction, did ‘molecular oxygen appear in the atmosphere, As discussed in Chapter 13, the concentration of O, did not become signifi- ‘ant until about 600 million years ago. TAKE-HOME MESSAGE Heavier elements formed in stars and supernovae added ‘to gates in nebulae fram which new generations of stars formed, Planets formed from rings of dust and ice orbiting ‘he stars, so we areal formed of stardust. As they formed, planets diferentiated, wth denser materials sinking to ‘he center, ‘QUICK QUESTION: Why do the gas-giant planets orbit ‘farther from the Sun than the terrestal planets? 1.4 We Are AlMade of Stardust 37