THE INQUIRER

part icles collided, they formed planetesimals which are minor planets that filled the young Solar System. The famous Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO) MU69 that was visited by the New Hor izons probe in 2019 is the only planetesimal visited by humanity. Over t ime these planetesimals clumped together and eventually formed into objects large enough to have their own gravitat ional pull on other bodies, which eventually formed into spher ical planets, moons, and dwarf planets.

objects were thrown across the Solar System which created an extremely unstable environment . On top of this, with the frequent collisions between planets, planetesimals, and other objects, new mat ter was added to the planets. From these collisions, hot magma was lifted from the mant le, creat ing a hellish environment . But dur ing this fiery and fierce t ime in Earth?s history, Earth may have gained its most unique trait : the presence of water. Scient ists believe that a type of meteor called a Carbonaceous Chondr ite, meteors r ich in water and carbon, had many collisions with the developing Earth and gave us the thing that makes this marble blue.

Protoplanetary DiscAS209 But these young celest ial bodies weren?t gonna have it easy. The young Solar System was a place of chaos. For example, the terrestr ial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) faced a per iod of extreme celest ial bombardment . These planets were struck by tens of thousands of, if not more, meteors causing massive geological change. From these events,

Depiction of Asteroid BombardingEarth The general shape of the Solar System is often character ized as a plane or a plate shape. While this holds ground for

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