# Solar system origin

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solar-system-origin/98760>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 17, 2002, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solar-system-origin/98760 "2002-03-17T19:24:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2002, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solar-system-origin/98760/1 "2002-03-17T19:24:46Z")

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AFAIK, all the elements which make up our solar system was  
produced in a star that exploded and ejected the matter heavier  
than hydrogen and helium.

Where is the position of this former star?

Is there a white dwarf/neutron star/ black hole close by?

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**Author:** ![Truth\_Seeker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5fc32e/32.png) [@Truth\_Seeker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truth_Seeker)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2002, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solar-system-origin/98760/2 "2002-03-17T19:43:18Z")

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**The Bad Astronomer** would know. I hope he’ll still be in here answering questions. Now that his new book, **Bad Astronomy by Philip Plait** just hit the bookstores last week, his publisher might get annoyed if he keeps giving it up for free! 😉

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**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2002, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solar-system-origin/98760/3 "2002-03-18T01:59:06Z")

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Our Solar System was not made from the remains of only one earlier star. The ashes of hundreds of stars form clouds of dust and gas, and gravitational collapse of parts of that dustcloud create stars and their associated planetary systems.

To have a look at it happening now, see some of the Hubble pictures of the Orion Nebula, like those here:  
[http://faculty.rmwc.edu/tmichalik/NebandStar.htm](http://faculty.rmwc.edu/tmichalik/NebandStar.htm)

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**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2002, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solar-system-origin/98760/4 "2002-03-18T03:25:06Z")

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The book _Atom,_ by Lawrence M. Krauss, has a detailed account of this as part of the process by which he traces particles created in the Big Bang to their eventual capture as an oxygen atom in our Earth.

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**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2002, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solar-system-origin/98760/5 "2002-03-18T05:15:04Z")

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The sun orbits the center of the galaxy at a speed of ~150 kilometers per second, and a distance of ~30,000 light years. Each orbit takes about 240 million years. [http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~spac250/elio/spac.html](http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~spac250/elio/spac.html)  
Since the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago it has circled the galaxy about 18 times. The shape of the solar system’s orbit is affected by the gravitational attraction of nearby stars, and that changes with each orbit, as those stars move through their own orbits at different speeds. Whatever remnants remain of the explosions that triggered the formation of the solar system have been travelling in their own erratic orbits for the past 4.5 billion years and could be found anywhere within the galaxy by now.