What results from strong aerodynamic drag on objects reaching about one meter in the dense protoplanetary disk?
Answer
Rapid loss of orbital velocity causing objects to spiral toward the Sun.
The meter barrier problem describes a highly destructive phase for growing solids in the early solar nebula. When objects reach approximately one meter in diameter, they are subjected to intense aerodynamic drag from the still-dense gas surrounding the proto-Sun. This powerful drag force rapidly removes orbital momentum, causing the objects to lose speed and spiral inward toward the Sun on timescales as brief as a few hundred years. This phenomenon poses a significant challenge because if relying only on slow sticking growth, nearly all the inner disk material would be lost before it could aggregate into kilometer-sized planetesimals.
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