Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: thedoc on 07/08/2012 15:58:31

Title: Why Have Planets Got Most of the Angular Momentum?
Post by: thedoc on 07/08/2012 15:58:31

Why have planets got most of the solar system's angular momentum?
Asked by Michael, Ipswich


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[chapter podcast=4066 track=12.08.06/Naked_Scientists_Specials_12.08.06_10530.mp3](https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenakedscientists.com%2FHTML%2Ftypo3conf%2Fext%2Fnaksci_podcast%2Fgnome-settings-sound.gif&hash=f2b0d108dc173aeaa367f8db2e2171bd)  ...or Listen to the Answer[/chapter] or [download as MP3] (http://nakeddiscovery.com/downloads/split_individual/12.08.06/Naked_Scientists_Specials_12.08.06_10530.mp3)

Title: Why Have Planets Got Most of the Angular Momentum?
Post by: thedoc on 07/08/2012 15:58:31

We answered this question on the show...



Dominic -   I think that’s actually one of the real puzzles of our solar system, why the mass is all in the Sun, but the angular momentum is all in the planets that orbit around it.  John…
John -   Yes, I mean something must have happened to bring that about because as you said earlier, the Sun and the planets formed out of one rotating disk of materials.  So something has happened to give us this situation where the angular momentum is in the planets rather than the Sun.  So, theorists come up with all sorts of great theories involving viscosity and friction and so on to explain it away, but it’s a perceptive question.