why the Earth ended up rocky and small, but Jupiter today is gaseous and massive.?

Question

Please be concise and consider what property of the original solar disk mostly determined where different types of planets formed.

Answer 1

So instead of reading your homework assignment or reading your text book (or even just searching online), you would rather ask here.
I will give you the basics, its up to you to do some of the work and fill in some details.

When the sun started to heat up from formation, that heat vaporized the volatiles (water, methane, the lighter gases, etc.) and the early solar wind blew these light elements farther from the forming sun.
The heavier elements and dust (silicates, iron, other metals) would not have been as affected by the solar wind and would have remained in the disk near the sun. Therefore the inner planets would have had more of the heavier matter and less of the lighter matter to incorporate into their structures.
Meanwhile, the lighter elements would have cooled and slowed down by the time they reached Jupiter's orbit, allowing that planet (and the other gas giants) to capture a significant amount of these materials.

Answer 2

It has to do with the vapour point of the elements/compounds that made up the cloud of matter that formed the solar system.

The earth an other rocky planets are made primarily of silicates and metals. These both have boiling points much higher than the gasses that make up the outer gas giants (Mostly Hydrogen, with some Helium, water, and methane). As a result, when the sun began to release energy, these lighter, more volatile components were blown to the outer reaches of the solar system.

The initial cloud of material is thought to have been very even in composition.

Answer 3

This one would be a good question for scientists how study the history of our solar system. I would guess that the rocky planets formed from solid rocky matter orbiting the sun early in the sun's life. The gaseous matter may have been driven farther away from the sun once the sun started "burning".

Answer 4

The short easy answer is, because of Earth's distance from the sun.

When our sun started forming, the disk of debris (gas, dust) that was around it was spinning. The further away from our sun it went, the thinner and cooler it was. So, most of the more dense material was already in close. Additionally, a large gassy, icy shell couldn't have formed around the planets that were close in, because the sun's heat would have evaporated it.

There's a very good, extensive article about this in the December issue of Sky & Telescope magazine if you'd like to check it out. :-)

Answer 5

Jupiter ate a lot of beans.

Answer 6

Here, i got a VERY simple answer for you. God created the planets, your welcome!!