This, in very brief form, is the Planetesimal Hypothesis which we are
asked to substitute for that based on Laplace's suggestion as an
explanation of the mode of origin of the solar system; and the
phenomena of the spiral nebul? are appealed to as offering evident
support to the new hypothesis. We are reminded that they are
elliptical in outline, which accords with the hypothesis; that their
spectra are not gaseous, which shows that they may be composed of
solid particles like the planetesimals; and that their central masses
present an oval form, which is what would result from the tidal
effects, as just described. We also remember that some of them, like
the Lord Rosse and the Andromeda nebul?, are visually double, and in
these cases we might suppose that the two masses represent the
tide-burst suns that ventured into too close proximity. It may be
added that the authors of the theory do not insist upon the appulse of
two suns as the only way in which the planetesimals may have
originated, but it is the only supposition that has been worked out.
But serious questions remain. It needs, for instance, but a glance at
the Triangulum monster to convince the observer that it cannot be a
solar system which is being evolved there, but rather a swarm of
stars. Many of the detached masses are too vast to admit of the
supposition that they are to be transformed into planets, in our sense
of planets, and the distances of the stars which appear to have been
originally ejected from the focal masses are too great to allow us to
liken the assemblage that they form to a solar system.
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