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French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes was the first to propose a model for the origin of the Solar System in his book The World, written from 1629 to 1633.. In his view, the universe was filled with vortices of swirling particles, and both the Sun and planets had condensed from a large vortex that had contracted, which he thought could explain the circular motion of the plane
Pierre-Simon Laplace, one of the originators of the nebular hypothesis. Ideas concerning the origin and fate of the world date from the earliest known writings; however, for almost all of that time, there was no attempt to link such theories to the existence of a "Solar System", simply because it was not generally thought that the Solar System, in the sense we now understand it, existed.
The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication differ), identified through its various designations (including temporary and permanent schemes), and the ...
The gap between the planets Mars and Jupiter disclosed by the Titius–Bode law was filled by the discovery of the asteroids Ceres and Pallas in 1801 and 1802 with many more following. At first, astronomical thought in America was based on Aristotelian philosophy, [91] but interest in the new astronomy began to appear in Almanacs as early as ...
3.0 billion years (10.8 billion Gya): Formation of the Gliese 581 planetary system: Gliese 581c, the first observed ocean planet and Gliese 581d, a super-Earth planet, possibly the first observed habitable planets, form. Gliese 581d has more potential for forming life since it is the first exoplanet of terrestrial mass proposed that orbits ...
This was the first evidence that anything other than the planets repeatedly orbited the Sun, [289] though Seneca had theorized this about comets in the 1st century. [290] Careful observations of the 1769 transit of Venus allowed astronomers to calculate the average Earth–Sun distance as 93,726,900 miles (150,838,800 km), only 0.8% greater ...
The first known mass extinction was the Great Oxidation Event 2.4 billion years ago, which killed most of the planet's obligate anaerobes. Researchers have identified five other major extinction events in Earth's history, with estimated losses below: [ 11 ]
Approximate sizes of the planets relative to each other. Outward from the Sun, the planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Jupiter's diameter is about 11 times that of the Earth's and the Sun's diameter is about 10 times Jupiter's. The planets are not shown at the appropriate distance from the Sun.