AUDIO: The solar system formed from an immense rotating cloud of gas and dust, the solar nebula. The sun's nuclear fires ignited at the dense center of this nebula. The planets were born in the swirling currents of the great cloud. Planets near the sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, evolved as globes of rock. They were too small and their gravitational fields too weak to capture and hold the gases from the nebula. But far from the sun, the massive planets Jupiter and Saturn, with powerful gravitational fields, did attract and hold thick gaseous atmospheres of Hydrogen and Helium. VIDEO DESCRIPTION: Animation of swirling cloud in space. Sun being born. Planets being born. Cratered surface of rocky planet. Zoom out from central solar system to see the outer gaseous planets in their orbits.