How did the Great Divide occur in the Solar System?

Abdul Hakim Mahmoud

The Nature Astronomical Journal published in its January 13 issue a scientific paper by a team of researchers led by Stephen Mukhsis, Professor of Geochemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Ramon Praser, researcher at the Institute of Earth and Life Sciences at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

The scientific paper examined the possible causes of the "Great Divide" in the solar system, which kept parts of the solar system spaced out when the sun formed, by using a series of computer simulations to reveal the mystery that astronomers and astrophysicists have been baffling for so long.

The Great Gap and the Great Divide
The great divide manifests itself in the presence of a relatively empty space located near Jupiter, behind what astronomers call the main planet belt.

According to the statement issued by the University of Colorado Boulder, the phenomenon of great division left parts of the solar system separated when the sun formed, and they worked to divide the planets into two distinct groups, in terms of their size and nature of their formations.

They are the group of giant gas planets farthest from the sun like Saturn and Jupiter which are known as Jovian, and smaller and closer Earth planets like the Earth and Mars that are known as rocky planets.

These two groups of planets not only differ in size, but also differ in their composition, as the planets close to the sun are largely composed of rocks and lack organic carbon compounds, while the farthest and giant planets are made of gas to a large extent.

Jupiter is not the cause of the Great Divide
Many scientists previously assumed that Jupiter is the cause of that great divide, given that it is so large and has so strong gravity that it took small pebbles and dust from the outer solar system and prevented them from rising toward the sun.

But the authors of the study were not convinced of this explanation, when they used a series of computer simulations to explore the role of Jupiter in the solar system, simulations showed that the planet was not large enough in the early solar system to prevent the flow of rock materials towards the sun, so it did not cause division, So the team had to find an alternative explanation.

The sun disk holds vital evidence
For years, scientists who run Atacama Large Millimeter Observatory (ALMA) in Chile have noticed something unfamiliar around distant stars. Star systems are often surrounded by gas and dust disks called planetary rotating disks.

Based on the observations made by the Alma Observatory of emerging star systems, scientists have come up with a new approach to explain the differences and divisions in the two groups of planets of the Solar System.

Where observatory data showed discs of gas and dust around our star, you may have separated gas and dust into separate pockets of high and low pressure.

Stephen Moxhis says the most likely explanation is that the great divide arose from the fundamental structure of this disk of gas and dust, that is, it comes directly from the initial planetary disk around the sun from which the planets originated.

Consequently, the solar system was divided into two or more parts by disk, and the materials in these two regions were prevented from mixing, hence two different types of planets were found.