History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses is captured by the Sun and planets form from it. In this there were 6 original planets, corresponding to 6 point-masses in the filament, with planets A and B, the 2 innermost, colliding, the former at twice the mass of Neptune, and ejecting out of the Solar System, and the latter at 1/3 the mass of Uranus, and splitting into Earth and Venus. Mars and the Moon are former moons of A. Mercury is either a fragment of B or an escaped moon of A. The collision also produced the asteroid belt and the comets. T.J.J. See was an American
Apparent retrograde motion retrogradation puzzled ancient astronomers, and was one reason they named these bodies 'planets' in the first place: 'Planet' comes from the Greek word for 'wanderer'. In the geocentric model of the Solar System proposed by Apollonius in the third century BCE, retrograde motion was explained by having the planets travel in deferents and epicycles. It was not understood to be an illusion until the time of Copernicus, although the Greek astronomer Aristarchus in 240 BCE proposed a heliocentric model for the Solar System. Galileo's drawings show that he first observed Neptune on December 28, 1612, and again on January 27,