From Dust To Dust

We are star dust! From the dust whence we came… For the first time, scientists have discovered a massive star around which exists a huge ring of dust. It’s called a protoplanetary disk and it’s where planets and ultimately how entire solar systems are formed. It’s where life itself starts with the birth of a solar system!

July 14, 2010 – A new discovery has the potential to answer the long-standing question of how massive stars are born — and hints at the possibility that planets could form around the galaxy’s biggest bodies.

“It’s the first time something like this has been observed,” – SOURCE: NASA

Material from a protoplanetary dust disk will begin to accrete  together forming larger clumps of debris.  The great pressures and gravitational forces exerted on the gas, dust, and debris creates a cosmic soup where these particles of dust and debris get increasingly larger over time through the process of accretion. See the article on Wikipedia regarding the Nebular Hypothesis.

This debris eventually forms planets over billions of years. These planets are pulled into orbit around the star, ever increasing in size as more debris collects. This process leaves some material behind orbiting aimlessly around the Sun until it’s either swallowed by the star, or it impacts another planet. The debris are called meteoroids, asteroids, and comets.

All those meteorites we love so much, are remnants of the material left over from our own solar system’s formation. The next time you admire your meteorite collection, you might want to rethink some things about our own origins.

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Learn what meteorites are, where they come from, how to collect and how to find meteorites.