BOULDER, COLORADO — A separation known as the Great Divide splits the rocky planets and the gas planets in our solar system.<br /><br />According to the latest paper published in Nature Astronomy, researchers can now explain how the divide came to exist.<br /><br />Citing the researchers, University of Colorado's news release says that rocky planets in the sunward side of the divide are poor in carbon and other organic materials.<br /><br />The opposite is true for the gas planets beyond the divide, such as Jupiter, which is rich in carbon.<br /><br />The paper theorizes that billions of years ago, the sun may have once had a massive ring structure with alternating high and low pressure bands.<br /><br />Those bands would separate matter into distinct sinks, one forming Jupiter and Saturn, and another Earth and Mars. This results in the Great Divide.<br /><br />A paper co-author says that the pressure barrier was not impenetrable, as enough materials from outer space have likely crossed over.<br /><br />The carbon rich material that had climbed the divide would then play a role in the evolution of life on Earth.
