a

. “... most every prediction by theorists about planetary formation has been wrong.”  Scott Tremaine, as quoted by Richard A. Kerr, “Jupiters Like Our Own Await Planet Hunters,” Science, Vol. 295, 25 January 2002, p. 605.

“To sum up, I think that all suggested accounts of the origin of the Solar System are subject to serious objections. The conclusion in the present state of the subject would be that the system cannot exist.” Harold Jeffreys, The Earth: Its Origin, History, and Physical Constitution, 6th edition (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 387.

“But if we had a reliable theory of the origin of planets, if we knew of some mechanism consistent with the laws of physics so that we understood how planets form, then clearly we could make use of it to estimate the probability that other stars have attendant planets. However, no such theory exists yet, despite the large number of hypotheses suggested.” R. A. Lyttleton, Mysteries of the Solar System (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1968), p. 4.

“A great array of observational facts must be explained by a satisfactory theory [on the evolution of the solar system], and the theory must be consistent with the principles of dynamics and modern physics. All of the hypotheses so far presented have failed, or remain unproved, when physical theory is properly applied.” Fred L. Whipple, Earth, Moon, and Planets, 3rd edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 243.

“Attempts to find a plausible naturalistic explanation of the origin of the Solar System began about 350 years ago but have not yet been quantitatively successful, making this one of the oldest unsolved problems in modern science.”  Stephen G. Brush, A History of Modern Planetary Physics, Vol. 3 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 91.

b

. “The most striking outcome of planetary exploration is the diversity of the planets.” David Stevenson, as quoted by Richard A. Kerr, “The Solar System’s New Diversity,” Science, Vol. 265, 2 September 1994, p. 1360.

“I wish it were not so, but I’m somewhat skeptical that we’re going to learn an awful lot about Earth by looking at other planetary bodies. The more that we look at the different planets, the more each one seems to be unique.”  Ibid.

“Stevenson and others are puzzling out how subtle differences in starting conditions such as distance from the sun, along with chance events like giant impacts early in the solar system history, can send planets down vastly different evolutionary paths.” Kerr, “The Solar System’s New Diversity,” p. 1360.

“You put together the same basic materials and get startlingly different results. No two [planets] are alike; it’s like a zoo.” Alexander Dessler, as quoted by Richard A. Kerr, Ibid., p. 1361.

c

. Uranus’ spin axis is “tilted” 98°. In other words, Uranus spins on its side and slightly backwards. Evolutionists have incorrectly speculated that Uranus must have been tipped over by a giant impact. However, such an impact would not have changed the orbital planes of Uranus’ larger moons, which are also “tipped over.”

d

. The Astronomical Almanac for the Year 2003 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2003), p. F2.

e

. Ibid.

f

. Ibid.

The Moon’s orbital plane is inclined 18.5° – 28.5° to the Earth’s equatorial plane. (Actually, the Moon’s orbital plane precesses between those values over an 18.6-year cycle.) This is a considerable inclination when one recognizes that the Moon possesses 82.9% of the angular momentum of the Earth-Moon system. No other planet-satellite system comes close to this amount.

Theories that for centuries claimed to show how the Moon evolved can now be rejected because of this fact alone. A more recent theory claims that a Mars-size body collided with the early Earth and kicked up debris that formed the Moon.  Ward and Canup acknowledge that

Recent models of this process predict that the orbit of the newly formed Moon should be in, or very near [less than 1°], the Earth’s equatorial plane. William R. Ward and Robin M. Canup, “Origin of the Moon’s Orbital Inclination from Resonant Disk Interactions,” Nature, Vol. 403, 17 February 2000, p. 741.

Nevertheless, speculative ways to circumvent this problem continue to be suggested. Even if some theory could explain the Moon’s high orbital inclination and angular momentum, other problems remain. [See “Origin of the Moon” on page 26.]

g

. Lyttleton, p. 16.

Fred Hoyle, The Cosmology of the Solar System (Hillside, New Jersey: Enslow Publishers, 1979), pp. 11–12.

“One of the detailed problems is then to explain how the Sun itself acquires nearly 99.9% of the mass of the solar system but only 2% of its angular momentum.” Frank D. Stacey, Physics of the Earth (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1969), p. 4.

Some have proposed transferring angular momentum from the Sun to the planets by “magnetic linking.” McCrea states:

However, I scarcely think it has yet been established that the postulated processes would inevitably occur, or that if they did they would operate with the extreme efficiency needed in order to achieve the required distribution of angular momentum. William Hunter McCrea, “Origin of the Solar System,” Symposium on the Origin of the Solar System (Paris, France: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1972), p. 8.

h

. A transneptunian object is a body that orbits the Sun—usually beyond the orbit of the planet Neptune, about 30 astronomical units, or 2.8 billion miles, from the Sun.

Contributing to the IAU’s decision to remove Pluto’s status as a planet was its small size (two-thirds the diameter of our moon) and the discovery, beginning in 1992, of what are now more than a thousand transneptunian objects, at least two of which are larger than Pluto. All are much farther from the Sun than Pluto.

A simple fix for the IAU would have been to define transneptunian objects as those bodies that always orbit the Sun beyond the orbit of Neptune. (Pluto’s orbit sometimes comes inside that of Neptune.) Also, an honest acknowledgement that all planets are unique would have clarified matters. Even the many planets that have been discovered outside the solar system are completely different from those inside the solar system. Evolutionary process will not explain them all. [See “Have Planets Been Discovered Outside the Solar System?” on page 350.]