As this cloud gradually contracted under the effects of gravity, it first formed rings and then amalgamated into planets.
As the edges of the plates gradually contracted and subsided, large amounts of sand, silts, and mud from the continents settled and accumulated along their seaward side.
For the next two hours we stare at an immense expanse of white dance floor as it gradually contracts with bodies.
In this conceptual model, a giant, swirling gas cloud gradually contracts to form a central Sun, and the planets and their moons are assumed to be natural by-products of the star formation process.
Local clinical commissioning groups, not the secretary of state, will decide what services it is "reasonable" to provide out of the budgets they are given, and the package will gradually contract.
That combination of youth and largeness supports another hypothesis: that brown dwarfs are nearly as big as stars at birth but gradually contract over very long lifetimes.
Following induction, the cell bodies gradually contracted and became round, triangular or cone-shaped with multipolar processes.
Ordinarily, once the antigen that initiated the immune response has been cleared, the expanded pool gradually contracts and persists as a smaller number of memory cells, which are poised for another potential encounter with the antigen.
When you release the fire button, the reticle gradually contracts to its normal accuracy.
Exposure to intense light at low temperature induces a phase transition in a cuprate superconductor during which it expands within a few picoseconds and then gradually contracts.
And just as before, it caused my stomach muscles gradually to contract to about a sixth of their original volume.
