CHAPTER1 HOW IT ALL BEGAN THEORIGIN OF THE EARTH LET S CHECK OUT THIS VIEW WE RE ABOUT 1 5 MILES 2 4 KM ABOVE SEA LEVEL THIS DESERT AIR IS SUPERCLEAR AS SOON AS NIGHT FALLS IT WILL BECOME ONE OF THE DARKEST PLACES IN THE WORLD DIGGER LOOK UP SEE THE TELESCOPE DOMES AT THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN I CAN T WAIT TO GET THERE DIGGER WE VE GOT QUESTIONS TO ANSWER AND WE RE IN THE PERFECT PLACE TO GET A BIRD S EYE VIEW OF HOW AND WHEN THE EARTH FORMED LET S TELL HER HOW SCIENTISTS BELIEVE IT ALL
LA SILLA OBSERVATORY CHILE WAIT I VE GOT A CALL COMING IN DIRTMEISTER HERE HELLO HI DIRTMEISTER THIS IS RACHEL AND I M CALLING FROM THE JACK HILLS DOWN HERE IN AUSTRALIA I M OUT ON A FIELD TRIP AND ONE OF THE GUIDES JUST SHOWED US SOME OF THE OLDEST ROCKS ON THE PLANET a HE SAYS THEY RE OLDER THANIEVER IMAGINED JUST HOW OLD IS THE EARTH ANYWAY HOW IS IT FORMED O O OD MOST ASTRONOMERS BELIEVE THAT THE SUN AND PLANETS STARTED OUT AS A LARGE SPINNING CLOUD OF GAS AND DUST CALLED A NEBULA USING POWERFUL TELESCOPES LIKE THESE HERE AT LASILLA ASTRONOMERS CAN ACTUALLY SEE THIS SAME TYPE OF NEBULA IN OTHER PARTS OF OUR GALAXY TODAY LOOK AT THIS ONE CALLED THE ROSETTE NEBULA TO REALLY ANSWER YOUR QUESTION RACHEL WE HAVE TO DO SOME RESEARCH DIGGER LET S ROLL ROSETTE NEBULA
ALTOGETHER ow does a humongous neb planets and moons that we have ula turn into our wonderful today The four planets closest to rocky Earth Scientists think that the sun Mercury Venus Earth the gas and dust particles in the and Mars had lots of heavy nebula were spread really far materials such as iron and rock apart but gravity started pulling The four outer planets Jupiter them closer together Well it Saturn Uranus and Neptune turns out that everything that is were more distant from the sun made of matter you know stuff where the pull of gravity was less has some gravity The more mas so they were made of lighter sive an object is the more gravi materials such as gases and ice tational pull it has Why do scientists think that All these tiny dust and a rotating disc of gas gas particles started A nebula became the solar system joining together to make is a large First off all of the plan cloud of gas bigger clumps Over time and dust ets travel around the sun the nebula got smaller in the same direction and in and started to spin This the same basic plane A plane spinning caused the nebula to is another name for a flat surface flatten out to form a large disc If you were to look at our solar As the moving clumps of particles system edge on the planets banged into each other they would all pretty much line up as if made bigger clumps they were stretched across a Most of the stuff collected in giant tabletop In addition the the middle of the disc and this sun is also on this same plane and large clump became the sun The it spins in the same direction that smaller clumps became the the planets move A family portrait of the sun and the eight major planets of the solar system not to scale A telescopic view of the Rosette Nebula 10
DIRTMEISTER s IN ADDITION TO THE SUN AND WHAT THE SOLAR SYSTEM MAY HAVE LOOKED LIKE WHEN THE EARTH WAS FIRST PULLING ITSELF TOGETHER PLANETS OUR SOLAR SYSTEM STILL HAS A FEW LEFTOVERS FROM THE ORIGINAL NEBULA THESE SOMETIMES CRASH INTO OUR EARTH AS COMETS ASTEROIDs AND METEORITES A close up view of a typical asteroid READY AIM ASTEROID BALL CLD 11
