Name:__________________________________________________________________ Formation of Our Solar System Lab
Objective: Students will be able to demonstrate the forces and processes involved in the formation of the solar
system.
Background Information:
The same process that created the Sun also created all of the stars in the sky. All stars form from clouds of
gas and dust. The gas is mostly hydrogen with a little helium. The dust is material that has come from previous
generations of now dead stars. Our cloud of gas and dust, a nebula, was created by the supernova of a massive star.
As our solar system began to form, the mass of the proto-solar (baby Sun) gas cloud caused it to begin
collapsing under its own gravity. As the cloud collapsed, it became denser. In the center, where it was densest, it
heated up from the friction generated by gas and dust particles colliding with one another. Together, the collapse
and rotation caused the cloud to flatten into a spinning disk with a hot dense core.
The hot, dense core of the cloud was the early sun. A thick disk of clumpy material that went on to form the
planets surrounded the young Sun. This material became to clump together, by the force of gravity, Planetisimals
or baby planets were created. As the planets slowly grew, they swept up much of the gas and dust that made up
the disk around the sun. A powerful solar wind from the new Sun blew most of the rest of the gas and dust away
and our solar system was born. With this dramatic solar wind, the gases of the inner planets was blown away and
the only the rocky cores remained. The outer planets were able to retain their gaseous bodies as well as their rock
cores. Planet formation is now considered to be a normal by-product after a star forms.
The evidence to this theory begins with the flatness of the solar system and their moons orbit the Sun in
more or less the same plane. Also, the orbits of the major bodies of the solar system are all nearly perfect circles.
However, our planets do remain in ellipses or elongated ovals, slightly off from a perfect circle. Lastly, almost all
bodies (with the exception of Venus and Uranus) share a common direction of rotation and revolution with that of
the Sun.
Materials:
a spinning chair
two weights
Hypothesis: What do you predict will happen if you spin in a chair with a light dumbbell then a heavy dumbbell in
each hand?
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Procedure:
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Take the chairs into the hallway for more space.
Place the chair where it can easily spin.
Sit in the chair and grasp a light weight dumbbell in each hand and your arm out straight from your body.
Then, have a fellow classmate spin the chair.
As the chair spins, slowly pull the weight into your body.
Then, observe and describe what happens below. (note the speed)
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a. What force did you represent as you attempted to pull the weights inward?
b. How did it FEEL as you made this inward motion?
c. What is the opposing force in the universe?
d. What is the direction of the oppositional force?
7. Now, try the opposite, in the spinning chair, begin with your arms close and touching your body. As the
chair spins at its fastest, slowly extend your arms outward. (note the speed)
a.
What happened to your arms?
b. What was the direction of the forces applied to your body? DRAW an image below to show the
direction of the forces.
Results:
Through this experiment, you have observed the “conservation of angular momentum.” This is very similar
to a spinning figure skater; fast, tight and spins slow and speeds the spin as the arms are pulled inward and
overhead. The fast spin slows dramatically when close-held weights are extended outward. The seated spinning
student spins much faster when they pull their arms close to their body. A decrease in the size of the rotation body
results in an increase in its speed (figure skater). A faster rotation speed causes the rotating mass to bulge
outward in the middle. This is how the slowly spinning cloud flattened into a disk that formed the sun and planets.
Analysis and Conclusion Questions:
1. Describe the three types of planets and provide the names for each category; Terrestrial, Jovian and Dwarf.
2. Based on your observations in this experiment, do you believe the rotations of the larger (Jovian) planets
are faster or slower than its smaller buddies (terrestrial and dwarf)? Explain your prediction.
3. Based on your observations as well as the information provided, how do you believe the equators of the
Jovian planets compare to the terrestrial planets?
4. Is there any evidence that the planets formed from a spinning mass of material, as predicted? Explain.
5. Would you expect the planets and the Sun to be rotating as well? Why?
6. In which direction is the Sun spinning (clockwise or counterclockwise)?
7. In which direction is Jupiter spinning? How did you know this?
8. What additional evidence do you now have that planets and the sun came from the same spinning nebula?
9. How did the terrestrial planets become different from the outer Jovian planets?
10. What remains in the center or core of each of our Jovian planets?
11. Draw and label a diagram the show this Nebular Theory or the formation of our solar system in a four step
process.
12. Describe what you see that support our theory of how the solar system was formed.