If someone says to you, I believe there might be planets around K-.pdf
- 1. If someone says to you, "I believe there might be planets around K-type stars", how would you respond? Defend your answer with the formation of the solar system. Solution A K-type star is the main sequence star on an HR-digram because the they are hydrogen-burning stars. K-type stars usually weigh around 0.45 to 0.8 solar masses, and they have a surface temperature of 3,900 and 5,200 K, they live on the main sequence for a very long time approximately 15 to 30 billion years. Researchers believe that the solar system was formed from a cloud of gas and dust in space was perturbed, maybe by the explosion of a nearby star. This explosion made waves in space which compressed the cloud of gas and dust. Compressing made the cloud start to collapse under its on gravity, a, forming a solar nebula. Just like an Ice-skater that spins faster as she pulls in her arms, the cloud begins to spin as it collapses. Eventually, the cloud grows hotter and denser in the center, with a disk of gas and dust surrounding it that was hot in the middle but cool at the edges. As the disk got thinner and thinner, particles began to pile together and form clumps. Some clumps got bigger, as particles and small clumps stuck to them, eventually forming planets or moons. Near the center of the cloud, where planets likeEarth formed, the only rocky material could stand the great heat. Icy matter settled in the outer regions of the disk along with rocky material, where the giant planets likeJupiter formed. As the cloud continued to fall in, the center eventually got so hot that it became a star, the Sun, and blew most of the gas and dust of the new solar system with a strong stellar wind. By studying meteorites, which are thought to be left over from this early phase of the solar system, scientists have found that the solar system is about 4600 million years old. A K-type star will need similar conditions to form it self and the debris form the star formation can lead to the formation of planets.