Solar System Tutor - Zoom Astronomy

Birth and Death of Our Solar System

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Solar System Tutor
Score: 9 Correct!

Our solar system formed about 5 billion years ago from an enormous cloud of dust and gas, a nebula. Dense parts of the clouds underwent gravitational collapse and compression to form a rotating gas globule, and then a disk. After further collapse, it eventually coalesced into a Sun together with orbiting planets, asteroids, etc.

The Sun has used up about half of its nuclear fuel; it will begin to die in another 5 billion years. It will eventually become a cold, black dwarf.

What did our Solar System form from?

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No, nuclear fusion combines hydrogen nuclei to form helium nuclei and lots of energy, fueling stars.

Nuclear fusion

A black dwarf

A nebula