The Shape Of The Solar System Has Changed Dramatically, Scientists Say

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Before it arranged itself into a flattened disk, the distribution of dust and rocks had more in common with a donut than a pancake. This is the conclusion scientists reached after studying iron meteorites from the outer Solar System, finding that they can only be explained if the Solar System's shape was once toroidal.

This is information that can help us interpret other emerging planetary systems and determine the order in which they assemble.

The formation of a planetary system around a star starts in a molecular cloud of gas and dust drifting through space. If a portion of the cloud becomes dense enough, it will collapse under its own gravity, spinning as it goes, becoming the seed of a growing baby star . As it spins, the material in the surrounding cloud pulls into a circling disk that feeds into the protostar.

We've seen these disks time and again around other stars , with gaps carved by planets slurping up the dust as they go.

According to a team led by planetary scientist Bidong Zhang of the University of California Los Angeles, the composition of asteroids in the outer Solar System requires the cloud of material to be donut-shaped, rather than a series of concentric rings in a flat disk. This suggests that the first stages of the system's coalescence are toroidal.

The iron meteorites in question – chunks of rock that have made their long way to Earth from the outer Solar System – are richer in refractory metals than those found in the inner Solar System. These are metals such as platinum and iridium, whose formation can only take place in a very hot environment such as one close to a forming star.