The sun’s searing radiation led to the shuffling of the solar system’s planets
Sunlight evaporating gas jumbled the giant planets’ orbits, simulations suggest
![illustration of sunlight heating and evaporating the disk of gas and dust around a young star](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/042922_lk_solar-system_feat.jpg?fit=1030%2C580&ssl=1)
Sunlight heating and evaporating the disk of gas and dust around a young star (as seen in this illustration) may have triggered a shift in the orbits of the still-forming giant planets in the solar system’s early history.
JPL-Caltech/NASA