Scientists find evidence the early solar system harbored a gap between its inner & outer regions

[Still Waters]

In the early solar system, a "protoplanetary disk" of dust and gas rotated around the sun and eventually coalesced into the planets we know today.

A new analysis of ancient meteorites by scientists at MIT and elsewhere suggests that a mysterious gap existed within this disk around 4.567 billion years ago, near the location where the asteroid belt resides today.

The team's results, appearing today in Science Advances, provide direct evidence for this gap.

"Over the last decade, observations have shown that cavities, gaps, and rings are common in disks around other young stars," says Benjamin Weiss, professor of planetary sciences in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). "These are important but poorly understood signatures of the physical processes by which gas and dust transform into the young sun and planets."

Likewise the cause of such a gap in our own solar system remains a mystery. 

https://phys.org/news/2021-10-scientists-evidence-early-solar-harbored.html

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj6928

[jethrofloyd]

33 minutes ago, Still Waters said:

In the early solar system, a "protoplanetary disk" of dust and gas rotated around the sun...

A fans of the theory 'Earth is flat' will now say that they have a historical basis for their theory.