Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research the clouds and winds of Venus. Microwave instruments determine the composition of atmospheres while infrared spectrometers examine surface rocks. A novel laser altimeter on board BepiColumbo will survey the topography of Mercury to within a meter. Further MPS instruments identify the atoms, electrons, and dust that move around the planets and impact their moons. Here the influence of the solar wind on the atmospheric gases is of particular interest. Theoretical studies and intensive computer simulations help to understand the processes both inside and surrounding the planets and to interpret the measured data. Models developed at MPS can describe, for example,
History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses of dynamics makes capture most unlikely as it requires special conditions. Swiss astronomer Louis Jacot (in 1951, 1962, 1981), like Weisacker and Ter Haar, continued the Cartesian idea of vortices but proposed a hierarchy of vortices or vortices within vortices, i.e., a lunar system vortex, a Solar System vortex, and a galactic vortex. He put forward the notion that planetary orbits are spirals, not circles or ellipses. Jacot also proposed the expansion of galaxies (stars move away from the hub), and that moons move away from their planets. He also maintained that planets were expelled, one at a time, from