The Formation of the Sun and Solar System

• The sun is a star and resides some 26,000 light-years from the Milky Way's center.
• Every 230 million years, the sun makes one orbit around the Milky Way's center.
• The sun formed more than 4.5 billion years ago, when a cloud of dust and gas called a nebula collapsed under its own gravity.
• As it did, the cloud spun and flattened into a disk, with our sun forming at its center.
• The disk's outskirts later accreted into our solar system, including Earth and the other planets.
• Scientists have even managed to see these planet-birthing disks around our sun's distant young cousins.

Explore the fascinating formation of the sun and our solar system, from the collapse of a nebula into a disk to the accretion of planets. Learn about the sun's orbit around the Milky Way's center and the observation of planet-birthing disks around young stars.