What physical law dictates that shrinking clumps of material within a nebula begin to spin faster?
Answer
Conservation of angular momentum
As gravity pulls the massive nebula inward, the material fragments into denser clumps. A fundamental consequence of this shrinking process is the conservation of angular momentum. This physical law dictates that as the radius of the rotating mass decreases, its rotational speed must increase proportionally to maintain the total angular momentum of the system. This accelerated spinning is crucial because it forces the material surrounding the central mass to flatten out into a rotating protoplanetary disk.
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