Why Does Our Solar System Look So Funny?
For decades, astronomers and scientists thought our solar system looked like a football. But with recent discoveries, the scientific community is rethinking everything.
So, when our team saw that weird-looking photo, we thought it was an alien 👽 or an embryo. Yet, it’s a photo from NASA that shows the prediction of what our solar system might look like.
So, why does our solar system look so strange?
1) It’s full of gas
We and all the other planets sit inside a bubble. It’s like a suitcase carved out by our host star, the Sun’s solar flares, and winds. Inside our safe sphere, we experience the sun’s rays from a comfortable distance. But outside of our enclosure are ionized gases and magnetic fields filling the gaps between our solar system and space like soup.
All that gas orbits around the sun, like us, making it look like a smashed croissant.
2) Hot and Cold Don’t Mix
In any system, there are hot parts and cold parts. Supercharged ions create warmer areas while freezing particles glob together and create cooler regions. Opher, a professor of astronomy at Boston University. “If you have some cold fluid and hot fluid, and you put them in space, they won’t mix.”
Opher’s earlier work goes on to explain that these parts want to separate. But that would not be good for our solar system because it would pull us apart. So, magnetic forces hold everything together in a “blob shape." That tug-a-war of cold versus hot deflates the shape, making it look strange.
3) It Protects Us
A lot is going on in space. One of the most colossal events is a supernova, which is a dying star. When anything that big happens in our galaxy, it flings particles, dust, and space debris all over at nearly the speed of light. Without our funky-looking bubble, we’d absorb 75% of that very hot and deadly stuff.
Our organ-shaped zone acts like a shield keeping us safe.
But…what shape do you think it looks like? Check out our Facebook page and see what others think.