The formation of the solar system S Pfalzner1, M B Davies2, M Gounelle3;4, A Johansen2,CMunker¨ 5, P Lacerda6, S Portegies Zwart7, L Testi8;9, M Trieloff10 & D Veras11 1 Max-Planck Institut fur¨ Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hugel¨ 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany 2 Lund Observatory, Department of Astronomy and Theoretical Physics, Box 43, 22100 Lund, Sweden 3 IMPMC, Museum´ National d’Histoire Naturelle, Sorbonne Universites,´ CNRS, UPMC & IRD, 57 rue Cuvier, 75005 Paris, France 4 Institut Universitaire de France, 103 boulevard Saint-Michel, 75005 Paris, France 5 Institut fur¨ Geologie und Mineralogie, Universitat¨ zu Koln,¨ Zulpicherstr.¨ 49b 50674 Koln,¨ Germany 6 Max-Planck-Institut fur¨ Sonnensystemforschung, Justus-von-Liebig-Weg 3, 37077 Gottingen,¨ Germany 7 Leiden University, Sterrewacht Leiden, PO-Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands 8 ESO, Karl Schwarzschild str. 2, D-85748 Garching, Germany 9 INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, I-50125, Firenze, Italy 10 Institut fur¨ Geowissenschaften, Im Neuenheimer Feld 234-236, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany 11 Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom E-mail:
[email protected] November 2014 Abstract. The solar system started to form about 4.56 Gyr ago and despite the long intervening time span, there still exist several clues about its formation. The three major sources for this information are meteorites, the present solar system structure and the planet- forming systems around young stars. In this introduction we give an overview of the current understanding of the solar system formation from all these different research fields. This includes the question of the lifetime of the solar protoplanetary disc, the different stages of planet formation, their duration, and their relative importance.