Is there a reason why we have four “rock” planets lined up followed by four “gas” planets in a row, or is it merely coincidence?

Question

Is there a reason why we have four “rock” planets lined up followed by four “gas” planets in a row, or is it merely coincidence?

In: Planetary Science

Answer 1

Coincidence.

However, the reason the gas giants are in the outer solar system is because when the sun originally ignited, it pushed all the extra gasses to the outer solar system, forming gas giants in the outer solar system.

We have observed gas giants close to their parent star (called a hot Jupiter) and we believe these planets formed in much the same way as the gas giants formed in our solar system, but various orbital interactions dropped these gas giants into a lower orbit.