Mark Jomar Abadilla Media and Information Literacy Grade 11 Mt.

Apo

THE THEORY ON THE ORIGIN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

The question of the origin of the solar system is one that has been a source of speculation for over
a hundred years; but, in spite of the attention that has been devoted to it, no really satisfactory answer has
yet been obtained. There are, at present, three principal hypotheses that appear to contain a large element
of truth, as measured by the closeness of the approximation of their consequences to the facts of the
present state of the system, but none of them is wholly satisfactory. These are Nebular Hypothesis of
Laplace, the Planetesimal Hypothesis of Chamberlin and Moulton, and the Capture Theory of See.

The Nebular Hypothesis of Laplace. The most widely accepted theory of planetary formation,
known as the nebular hypothesis, maintains that 4.6 billion years ago, the Solar system formed from the
gravitational collapse of a giant molecular cloud which was light years across. Several stars, including the
sun, formed within the collapsing cloud. The gas that formed the Solar System was slightly more massive
than the Sun itself. Most of the mass collected in the centre, forming the Sun; the rest of the mass
flattened into a protoplanetary disc, out of which the plants and other bodies in the Solar System formed.
Just as the Sun and planets were born, so they will eventually die. As the Sun begins to age, it will cool
and bloat outward to many times its current diameter, becoming a red giant, before casting off its outer
layers (forming that is misleadingly called a planetary nebula) and becoming a stellar corpse known as a
white dwarf. The planets will follow the Suns course; some will be destroyed, others will be ejected into
interstellar space, but ultimately, given enough time, the Suns retinue will disappear.

The Planetesimal Hypothesis of Chamberlin and Moulton. Forest Moulton in 1990 had also
shown that the nebular hypothesis was inconsistent with observations because of the angular momentum.
Moulton and Chamberlin in 1904 originated the planetesimal hypothesis. Along with many astronomers
of the day they came to believe the pictures of spiral nebulas from the Lick Observatory were direct
evidence of forming Solar Systems. These turned out to be galaxies instead but the Shapley-Curtis debate
about these was still 16 years in the future. One of the most fundamental issues in the history of
astronomy was distinguishing between nebulas and galaxies. Moulton and Chamberlin suggested that a
star had passed close to the Sun early in its life to cause tidal bulges and that this, along with the internal
process that leads to solar prominences, resulted in the ejection of filaments of matter from both stars.
While most of the material would have fallen back, part of it would remain in orbit. The filaments cooled
into numerous, tiny, solid fragments, planetesimals, and a few larger protoplanets. This model received
favourable support for about 3 decades but passed out of favour by the late 30s and was discarded in the
40s by the realization it was incompatible with the angular momentum of Jupiter, but a part of it,
planetesimal accretion, was retained.

The Capture Theory of See. The capture theory, proposed by M. M. Woolfson in 1964, posits
that the Solar System formed tidal interaction between the Sun and a low-density protostar. The Suns
gravity would have drawn material from the diffuse atmosphere of the protostar, which would then have
collapsed to form the planets, whereas the similar ages of the Sun and the rest of the Solar System
indicate that they formed at roughly the same time. As captured planets would have initially eccentric
orbits Dormand and Woolfson in 1974 and 1977 and Woolfson proposed the possibility of a collision. A
filament is thrown out by a passing proto-star which is captured by the Sun and planets form from it. In
this there were 6 original planets, corresponding to 6 point-masses in the filament, with planets A and B,
the innermost, colliding, the former at twice the mass of Neptune, and ejecting out of the Solar System,
and the latter at 1/3 the mass of Uranus, and splitting into Earth and Venus. Mars and the Moon are
former moons of A. Mercury is either a fragment of B or an escaped moon of A. The collision also
produced the asteroid belt and the comets. T.J.J See was an American astronomer and Navy Captain who
at one time worked under Ellery Hale at the Lowell Observatory. He had a cult following largely because
of his many articles in Popular Astronomy but also in Astronomische Nachrichte (Astronomical News)
(mostly in English). While at the USNOs Mare Island. Cal. station, he developed a model which he
called capture theory, published in 1910, in this Researched on the Evolution of the Stellar Systems: v. 2.
The capture theory of cosmical evolution, founded on dynamical principles and illustrated by phenomena
observed in the spiral nebulae, the planetary system the double and multiple stars and clusters and the
star-clouds of the Milky Way, which proposed that the planets formed in the outer solar System and
were captured by the sun; the moons were formed in this manner and were captured by the planets. This
caused a feud with Forest Moulton, who co-developed the planetesimal hypothesis. A preview was
presented in 1090 at a meeting of the ASP (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) at the Chabot
Observatory in Oakland, Cal., and newspaper headlines blared Prof. Sees Paper Causes Sensation (San
Francisco Call) and Scientists in Furore Over Nebulae (San Francisco Examiner). Our current
knowledge of dynamics makes capture most unlikely as it requires special conditions.

Reference:

www.wikipedia.com