Word: haar
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...this week's Science magazine Dr. D. ter Haar of Purdue University sums up the more recent theories. He rules out all theories based on a collision, or near-collision, between the sun and another star. A string of planets drawn out of the sun in this way could not have so large a part of the system's angular momentum. The recent theory of Harvard's Dr. Fred L. Whipple (that the sun and the planets were formed at the same time out of a cloud of mixed gas and smoke particles) is hardly better, says...
...Mother Disc. Dr. ter Haar prefers his own modification of one of the earliest modern theories, originally proposed by Immanuel Kant in 1755. Kant suggested that the planets condensed gradually from a gaseous envelope surrounding the sun. Later cosmogonists discarded this theory mostly because it did not account for the greater angular momentum of the outer planets. But Dr. ter Haar believes that all Kant needs is a little tinkering...
...solar system, says ter Haar, must once have consisted of the sun, surrounded by a vast atmosphere of gas. The system's revolution shaped this atmosphere into a flattish disc. Near the center the gas was dense enough to be somewhat viscous. Its drag gradually slowed the rotation of the sun while the outer parts of the disc revolved faster. This slowing effect, thinks ter Haar, points toward an explanation of the uneven distribution of the solar system's angular momentum...
...David Haar...