The ‘standard model’ of the origin of the Solar System has been the Solar Nebula theory that, from its very introduction, has had severe difficulties.   Despite the fact that large numbers of workers have been developing the theory for forty years its difficulties have steadily increased and very recent observations indicate that the theory is quite untenable.  
     An alternative theory, the Capture Theory, based on a completely different precept, has been developed in York. Various aspects of the theory have been computationally modelled in some detail, which has demonstrated that the basic mechanisms at the heart of the theory are sound.   The theory gives a coherent story starting with the birth of stars and ending with the formation of planets, many of which have been detected and observed around distant stars.  In particular the development of the Solar System is described in terms of a coherent sequence of causally related events that explains the present structure of the system in some detail.

Professor Michael Woolfson
Department of Physics
University of York