Gravitational Instability
Astrophysicist Alan Boss explains that “the solar nebula breaks up through its own self-gravity into clumps of gas and dust, termed giant gaseous protoplanets, which then contract and collapse to form giant planets” (“Giant Planet” 1836). Simply put, the disk around a forming star breaks apart into spiraled arms, these arms - having their own gravity apart from their star - swirl and collapse into the beginnings of a planet. Unlike the timely problems that were present with the accretion model, Alan Boss explains that the Gravitational Instability model would have “no problem with forming gas giant planets in even the shortest-lived protoplanetary disk” (“Formation” 519). This theory has gained the enthusiasm of many scientist who explain that “the beauty of the disk instability mechanism is that, if it works, it can produce mutiJupiter mass planets and even entire planetary systems” (Durisen, Cai, Mejia, and Pickett 418).