solar nebula

A solar nebula was a giant, rotating cloud of gas and dust in space, about 4.6 billion years ago. This cloud gradually shrank and spun faster due to gravity, causing it to flatten into a disk. Over time, particles within the disk collided and stuck together, forming clumps that grew larger. Eventually, the center of the disk accumulated enough material to ignite nuclear fusion, creating the Sun. The remaining material coalesced into planets, moons, and other solar system objects. The solar nebula theory explains how our solar system originated from this collapsing cloud of primordial matter.