History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses the asteroids. Terrestrial planets would have no major moons which does not account for Luna. It predicts certain observations such as the similar angular velocity of Mars and Earth with similar rotation periods and axial tilts. In this scheme there are 6 principal planets: 2 terrestrial, Venus and Earth, 2 major, Jupiter and Saturn, and 2 outer, Uranus and Neptune; and 3 lesser planets: Mercury, Mars, and Pluto. This theory has a number of problems, such as explaining the fact that the planets all orbit the Sun in the same direction, which would appear highly unlikely if they were each
Stability of the Solar System Stability of the Solar System The stability of the Solar System is a subject of much inquiry in astronomy. Though the planets have been stable when historically observed, and will be in the short term, their weak gravitational effects on one another can add up in unpredictable ways. For this reason (among others) the Solar System is chaotic, and even the most precise long-term models for the orbital motion of the Solar System are not valid over more than a few tens of millions of years. The Solar System is stable in human terms, and far beyond, given that it