26: How To Build A Solar System

The Earth and the Sun and all the other planets feel like familiar friends who've been around forever. Wind the clock back a few billion years though, and things were very different. The infant Sun was prone to highly energetic tantrums, the gas giants were acting like thugs and throwing their weight around, and the rocky planets were just trying to gather enough dust and ice in one place to actually stay in one piece. It's not clear at all how we got from such a chaotic, violent early solar system to the relatively tranquil place we call home today. Fortunately, Emily's here with the latest models and theories to clear it all up for us.

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