Retrograde and prograde motion days. Venus probably began with a fast prograde rotation with a period of several hours much like most of the planets in the Solar System. Venus is close enough to the Sun to experience significant gravitational tidal dissipation, and also has a thick enough atmosphere to create thermally driven atmospheric tides that create a retrograde torque. Venus' present slow retrograde rotation is in equilibrium balance between gravitational tides trying to tidally lock Venus to the Sun and atmospheric tides trying to spin Venus in a retrograde direction. In addition to maintaining this present day equilibrium, tides are also sufficient to
History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses itself. Most of the mass collected in the centre, forming the Sun; the rest of the mass flattened into a protoplanetary disc, out of which the planets and other bodies in the Solar System formed. There are, however, arguments against this hypothesis. French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes was the first to propose a model for the origin of the Solar System in his "Le Monde" (ou Traité de lumière) which he wrote in 1632 and 1633 and for which he delayed publication because of the Inquisition and it was published only after his death in 1664. In his view,