Admittedly I’m asking with a lot of ignorance, so I’m not sure my question entirely makes sense. Gas giants in our solar system are just globs of gas, but all clumped up. However, various space photos, like the “Pillars of Creation” seem to be just floating blobs of gas that don’t seem to combine into a single spherical entity, planet or otherwise. Why does some float around and some clump into a single sphere? Or are the blobs floating around simply in transit from some stellar event and haven’t had time for its miniscule gravity to pull itself into ball?
In: Planetary Science
The giant globs (nebula) are big and loose enough that they take a very long time to fall into themselves. In fact, some are big enough to contain multiple slightly more squished areas that can fall into themselves and make individual stars inside the glob. It’s kind of like comparing clouds and raindrops. The clouds are loose enough that they don’t fall, while the rain is water that has clumped up inside the cloud and is now tight enough to fall.
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