Fictional planets of the Solar System while yet others are purely fictional and were never intended as serious hypotheses about the structure of the Solar System. Vulcan was a hypothetical planet supposed to revolve around the Sun inside the orbit of Mercury, invoked to explain certain irregularities in Mercury's orbit. The planet was proposed as a hypothesis in 1859, and abandoned not later than 1915. The name "Vulcan" has been used for various other fictional planets, in and out of the Solar System, that do not correspond to the hypothetical planet Vulcan. The planet Vulcan in the "Star Trek" franchise, for instance, is specified as orbiting
Formation and evolution of the Solar System of 4.6 billion years, suggesting that the Solar System must be at least this old. Studies of discs around other stars have also done much to establish a time frame for Solar System formation. Stars between one and three million years old have discs rich in gas, whereas discs around stars more than 10 million years old have little to no gas, suggesting that giant planets within them have ceased forming. Note: All dates and times in this chronology are approximate and should be taken as an order of magnitude indicator only. Formation and evolution of the Solar System The