New research from Rice University shows that Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, played a major role in shaping the early solar system — including the conditions that led to Earth’s formation.
The study, published in Science Advances, suggests that as Jupiter rapidly grew in its infancy, it carved out huge rings and gaps in the disk of gas and dust surrounding the young sun.
These gaps not only set the stage for the formation of planets like Earth but also explain a long-standing mystery about ancient meteorites.
Planetary scientists André Izidoro and Baibhav Srivastava from Rice used advanced computer simulations to model Jupiter’s early growth.
Their results show that Jupiter’s immense gravity stirred up the disk of gas and dust, creating ripples and “traffic jams” that trapped particles instead of letting them fall into the sun.
In these dense rings, the particles could stick together and form planetesimals — the rocky seeds from which planets are built.
Surprisingly, these planetesimals were not the solar system’s first generation of building blocks. They formed millions of years later, creating what scientists call a “second generation.”
This timing matches the birth of a special type of stony meteorite called chondrites.
These meteorites are among the most primitive materials ever found, preserving the chemical fingerprints of the early solar system.
“Chondrites are like time capsules from the dawn of the solar system,” said Izidoro, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Rice.
“For decades, scientists have wondered why some of them formed two or three million years after the first solids. Our study shows that Jupiter itself created the right conditions for this delayed formation.”
Chondrites contain tiny molten droplets known as chondrules, along with untouched dust from the early solar nebula. Because they never melted or changed chemically like other meteorites, they provide a unique record of how the solar system evolved.
Srivastava, a graduate student in Izidoro’s lab, explained that Jupiter’s rapid growth separated material in the inner and outer solar system, preserving their different isotopic “flavors.”
It also created new zones where planetesimals could form long after the first generation had disappeared.
The study also offers clues about why Earth, Venus, and Mars ended up clustered near the sun instead of spiraling inward — as happens in many other planetary systems.
Jupiter’s massive presence blocked gas from flowing inward, preventing the young rocky planets from migrating too close to the sun.
“Jupiter didn’t just become the biggest planet,” Izidoro said. “It set the architecture for the entire solar system. Without it, Earth as we know it might not exist.”
The researchers say their findings align with telescope images from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, which show young star systems with similar ringed structures — snapshots of what our solar system may have looked like in its earliest days.
Source: Rice University.
