Why are the gaseous planets further away from the sun than the rocky planets?

Question

In other words, why is the solar system arranged the way it is?

Answer 1

i think the better way of asking the question is: Why are the more distant planets gaseous? The answer is basically less gravity and lower temperature, but you can read about this all over the internet . Here's 1 link.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_system EDIT - Don't believe this next answer that it's just random. Not a chance. The universe doesn't work that way. There are reasons for everything, even if we don't know them all yet.

Answer 2

Up to a decade ago, scientists would have given you the same kind of answer as bsxfn.

Now that we have found hundreds of exoplanets around other stars, with most of them being gas giants very near their suns, we would tend to give you an answer like the one given by Devon R.

The reason why our particular solar system is presently (and apparently) stable in that fashion is because of the temperature. More heat means that lighter molecules (gas) reach escape velocity a lot easier (hydrogen or helium molecules cannot stay in our atmosphere very long).

However, why are 'our' gas giants so far away from our sun? There has to be something that causes them to be there, but since the discoveries of all these other systems, we are no longer sure why. Give us a few years...

Answer 3

actually, 'random guy' may be right.

although it seems ludicrous to most of us in the 'we grew up this way' school, it just MIGHT be possible that gas giants COULD exist much closer to a star than Jupiter is to ours.

This is a great example of 'fit the theory to the facts'. Because our Solar System doesn't have gas giants close to the Sun, astronomers figure (and have the math to back them up!) that gas giants would 'evaporate' if too close to their primary.

Now that some data is coming in showing gas giants in other systems VERY close to their primaries (like 10% the distance of Mercury!), we should probably rethink that math.

Reminds me of the poor guy that believed trains traveling over 41mph would have all the air sucked out of them! (he had the math to prove it, too)

(damn, i guess Everybody Doesn't Love Raymond! He beat me to my answer!)

As a clarification... when our Sun was young, it was prone to 'flare-ups', blowing off massive (by Earth standards) amounts of its atmosphere and causing some melting on Mercury. Most importantly to this discussion, the 'flares' blew away the original atmosphere of Venus, Earth and Mars. What we got now, is a 'Replacement Gas' sorta like the guys that played for the NFL during that strike.

Good thing too... otherwise we would have to breathe methane and ammonia.

this is the main reason i believe life in the Universe is a HELL of a lot rarer than Star Trek.

Answer 4

Because it randomly came that way. I don't think that's the case in all solar systems?