History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses occur in the interstellar material from which stars are born) formed the Sun and protoplanets, the latter splitting to form planets. The 2 portions can not remain gravitationally bound to each other, are at a mass ratio of at least 8 to 1, and for inner planets they go into independent orbits while for outer planets one of the portions exits the Solar System. The inner protoplanets were Venus-Mercury and Earth-Mars. The moons of the greater planets were formed from "droplets" in the neck connecting the 2 portions of the dividing protoplanet and these droplets could account for some of
Discovery and exploration of the Solar System Domenico Cassini later discovered four more moons of Saturn and the Cassini division in Saturn's rings. Edmond Halley realised in 1705 that repeated sightings of a comet were recording the same object, returning regularly once every 75–76 years. This was the first evidence that anything other than the planets orbited the Sun. Around this time (1704), the term "Solar System" first appeared in English. In 1781, William Herschel was looking for binary stars in the constellation of Taurus when he observed what he thought was a new comet. Its orbit revealed that it was a new planet, Uranus, the first