Astronomy and Space

History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses

The history of scientific thought about the formation and evolution of the Solar System began with the Copernican Revolution. The first recorded use of the term "Solar System" dates from 1704. Since the seventeenth century, philosophers and scientists have been forming hypotheses concerning the origins of the Solar System and the Moon and attempting to predict how the Solar System would change in the future. René Descartes was the first to hypothesize on the beginning of the Solar System; however, more scientists joined the discussion in the eighteenth century, forming the groundwork for later hypotheses on the topic. Later, particularly in the twentieth century, a variety of hypotheses began to build up, including the now–commonly accepted nebular hypothesis. Meanwhile, hypotheses explaining the evolution of the Sun originated in the nineteenth century, especially as scientists began to understand how stars in general functioned. In contrast, hypotheses attempting to explain the origin of the Moon have been circulating for centuries, although all of the widely accepted hypotheses were proven false by the Apollo missions in the mid-twentieth century. Following Apollo, in 1984, the giant impact hypothesis was composed, replacing the already-disproven binary accretion model as the most common explanation for the formation of the Moon.

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See also

• ▸Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 17
• ▸Charlotta Bass
• ▸Columba (constellation)

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