multiple gravity wells

[lemur]

Assuming the solar system began as a single, undifferentiated cloud of energetic matter, it is strange that the cloud congealed into multiple gravity wells. After all, if a center of gravity was emerging within the cloud, why wouldn't the heaviest matter sink to the center and cause a single gas giant to form and eventually ignite into a fusion reaction (star)? I have read that the sun has supernovad in the past and this is perhaps how the heavier materials for the planets emerged from it. But why wouldn't the matter that emerged from an exploding star simply fall back into it? Is it just random chance that certain bits of matter did not attain escape velocity but yet also were ejected at an angle and speed that caused them to attain the orbits that they did?

[swansont]

If the supernova releases more energy than the gravitational well's depth, then it won't have to re-collapse, but even if it is less, there will be a distribution of energies given to the particles. Some would have enough energy to escape, and we know that a supernova leaves behind a core.

 

The gravitational potential energy of a uniform sphere is -3/5 GM^2/r, and even though the sun isn't uniform, this gives us a starting point. This potential energy is of order 10^41 Joules. if you took the mass of the sun as Hydrogen and converted it all to Helium, you would release ~10^45 Joules, so it seems reasonable that a supernova of a sun-like star is capable of blowing itself apart.

[Moontanman]

I have read that the sun has supernovad in the past and this is perhaps how the heavier materials for the planets emerged from it.

 

That is a new one on me, can you give a link to that info?

[lemur]

That is a new one on me, can you give a link to that info?

 

I'm sorry. Maybe I should have specified that this was just something someone posted in another forum. I do not know of any institutional source regarding this. I assumed it was common discourse. It also makes sense to me that it would take a supernova to eject heavier elements out of a star. Maybe the heavy materials for the planets arrived from other sources than the sun.

[Moontanman]

I think the current consensus is that the materials that formed the planets was already present when the sun formed. They were produced when other older stars went super nova and the debris from these super nova formed the sun and the planets. I'm not aware of any mechanism that would allow the sun to produce the heavy elements and eject them into orbit around it.