Emerged from the dust of the stars, our sun was born together with many others, in a hydrogen cloud when by coincidence some areas of this cloud compressed and formed lumps, until the spark ignited, which is still blazing today, the fusion of hydrogen to helium.
But how was this cosmic clock movement created? About 4.6 billion years ago, instead of our solar system, an extensive cloud moved around the center of the galaxy. 99 percent of which consisted of hydrogen and helium and a few micrometer-sized dust particles of water carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and other carbon compounds such as ammonia and silicon compounds. The hydrogen and most of the helium had already been formed during the Big Bang.
The heavier elements and compounds were only then produced inside stars. When these stars died, the compounds were thrown into the universe during the explosion.
Everything that is dear to us today, like gold, diamonds, oil or even ourselves, ultimately consists only of the dust of the stars. Parts of the cloud of our early solar system contracted and condensed due to its own gravity. The impact could have been given by the pressure waves of a nearby supernova, a massive stellar explosion.
These condensations led to the formation of several hundred or even thousand stars in a star cluster, which after a few hundred million years dissolved into free single or double stars.
When the cloud contracted, the angular momentum had to be preserved. This is a law of nature and just like an ice-skater turns faster when she pulls her arms on a pirouette, the collapsing cloud turns faster and faster. The centrifugal forces acting on the outside finally turned the cloud into a disc.
Almost the entire mass of the cloud fell into the center and formed a protostar that continued to collapse, a sun-baby so to speak emerged. Inside, pressure and temperature increased until the nuclear fusion ignited. The energy released in the process created a radiation pressure that counteracted gravity and halted further contraction. A stable star, our sun, was born.
