What crucial boundary determines where ices can remain solid, dividing terrestrial and Jovian planet formation zones?

Answer

The frost line or snow line

A fundamental aspect governing solar system architecture is the thermal divide within the protoplanetary disk, known as the frost line or snow line. This boundary represents the specific distance from the central star where temperatures drop low enough—approximately 150 Kelvin—for volatile compounds like water, methane, and ammonia to condense and remain solid in the form of ice grains. In the region interior to this line, only rock and metal form solids, limiting the building blocks for terrestrial planets. Exterior to this line, the abundance of solid material dramatically increases because both rock/metal *and* ices are available, allowing for the rapid accumulation of massive cores necessary to gravitationally capture large amounts of surrounding hydrogen and helium, leading to the formation of gas and ice giants.

What crucial boundary determines where ices can remain solid, dividing terrestrial and Jovian planet formation zones?

Related Questions

What is the initial vast, rotating cloud of gas and dust in the solar system formation model called?Which thinker formalized a description of a cooling, rotating nebula shedding rings to form planets in the late 18th century?What provided the heavier elements like silicon, iron, oxygen, and carbon found in the solar nebula?What modern interpretation often suggests the trigger for the gravitational collapse of the nebula is?What physical principle dictates that the nebula spins faster as its radius shrinks during contraction?What is the resulting thin, pancake-shaped structure rotating around the hot core called?What process ignites at the core when sufficient temperature and pressure are reached, turning a protostar into a star?In the inner, hotter region of the protoplanetary disk, which materials primarily condense into solid particles?What crucial boundary determines where ices can remain solid, dividing terrestrial and Jovian planet formation zones?What are the kilometer-sized bodies formed by colliding dust grains called before they become protoplanets?What complex mechanism is proposed to explain how the Sun retained only 1% of the system's total angular momentum?What process, observed in exoplanet systems, suggests large planets may not have formed in their current orbital positions?
physicsastronomysolar systemstar formationnebular collapse