History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses (we've known, of course, since 1965, that it doesn't), very slow, accelerated, and finally, daily rotation. He explained the differences between inner and outer planets and inner and outer moons through vortex behaviour. Mercury's eccentric orbit was explained by its recent expulsion from the Sun and Venus' slow rotation as its being in the "slow rotation phase", having been expelled second to last. The Tom Van Flandern model was first proposed in 1993 in the first edition of his book. In the revised version from 1999 and later, the original Solar System had 6 pairs of twin planets each fissioned
Retrograde and prograde motion This has been suggested as an explanation for the preponderance of retrograde moons around Jupiter. Because Saturn has a more even mix of retrograde/prograde moons, however, the underlying causes appear to be more complex. With the exception of Hyperion all the known regular planetary natural satellites in the Solar System are tidally locked to their host planet, so they have zero rotation relative to their host planet, but have the same type of rotation relative to the Sun as their host planet, because they have prograde orbits around their host planet. That is to say, they all have prograde rotation