How the Solar System Formed

Students trace the formation of the solar system from a collapsing cloud of gas and dust to a spinning disk, the ignition of the Sun, the growth of rocky and giant planets, and the giant impact that formed the Moon, using evidence from telescopes, meteorites and moon rocks.

Grades 5-8About 15 minutes of narrated flight, plus discussion stops7 stops

The full guide, with the 40-minute plan, discussion key points, exit ticket, activities, transcript and PDF, comes with a teacher license. Already licensed? Use Open the full guide.

What students will see and do

Students visit the Orion Nebula and the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula, then return to the Sun, the whole solar system, Jupiter, Earth and the Moon as Aetherion tells the 4.6-billion-year origin story. The class pauses at Orion, the solar system overview and the Moon to discuss how scientists study the past and what evidence supports the disk model and the giant impact.

Learning objectives

• Describe how gravity caused a cloud of gas and dust to collapse and how spin flattened it into a disk.
• Explain why the inner planets are rocky and the outer planets are giants, using the idea of the frost line.
• Identify at least three lines of evidence for the solar system's origin, such as protoplanetary disks, aligned orbits, meteorite ages and moon rocks.
• Sequence the major events in the formation of the Sun, Jupiter, Earth and the Moon.

NGSS connections

Stops on this journey

1. A Star Nursery (discussion stop)
2. The Pillars of Creation
3. A Star Ignites
4. From Dust to Planets (discussion stop)
5. The First Giant
6. Building Earth
7. The Giant Impact (discussion stop)

Vocabulary

• nebula
• protoplanetary disk
• planetesimal
• accretion
• frost line
• nuclear fusion
• differentiation
• giant impact