The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-01-31
ORIGIN OF THE
SOLAR SYSTEM
Professor See of Mare Island
Navy Yard Has New.
NebuIar Hypothesis.

San Francisco. Jan. 50.-Declaring
that after continuous study and invcs-
tigation extending over a quarter of a
century he had at length completely
solved the problem of the origin Of the
solar system, Professor T. J. J. See,
United States navy. the officer in
charge of the observatory at Mare
island, gave tonight to the Astronom-
icaI Society of the Pacific the first pub
lie announcement of a new nebular by
pothesis, which he believes is destined
to permanently supplant that Of La
place. promulgated at Paris in 1896.
Professor See is the author of over
200 scientific papers published in the
journals and transactions Of the learned
societies Of this country and Europe
Twelve years ago he published large
volume on the orbits of double stars,
which is used by astronomers all OVER
/ the world. More recently he has pub
| iished important researches on the
mathematical theory OF the construe-
| ton Of the sun, and within the past
two years he developed a new theory
of earthquakes and mountain forma-
| ton. He explained earthquakes by the
! leakage Of oceans
Theory IS to Solar System.
The substance of Professor Sees
theory of the formation of the solar
| system is as follows:
He denies that the planets were ever
| detached from the sun when that globe
was EXPANDED into a nebula filling the
planetary orbits. and submits mathe-
NAUTICAL calculations to show that all
these masses have been captured
Originally the system was a spiral ne
bula. of much larger dimensions than
at present. formed by the automatic
! coiling up under mutual gravitation OF
| two or more streams Of cosmfcsl dust
| which met in such a way as TO produce
| 2 whirIinR motion about z center OF
vortex. As the nebuls cooled up IN
der its own gTayitation thu Splrals
were gradually drawn nearer TO-
eether. and ali the nuclei formed ir
these coils revolved in elliptfcal paths
of large eccentricity. These nrigiHa
nuclei in the coiiing streams were tbs
beginning of the planets, which becarl'
larger by gathering up more e'islnica
dust while at the same tine their or
bits were reduced in size and rounded
I'D under secular action of the resisting
medium against which these bodies re-
! VOWED. The resisting medium is tn
]
hits Of the planets and satellites. Tit
nearly perfect eircularity Of thes'
: orbits has always excited the wonde
! Of the greatest n1atheInaticians-
Planets Beyond Neptune.
This nebulous res stance has great
. IL diminished the size and ecceatrieitl
of the original orbits. so that our sofa
system was in the beginning mucl
T larger than t is known to DC today
Put as Nsptune's orbit is almost al
exact circle. Professor See feels cen
fdent- and so announced 20 the sOciet,
/. tonight. that there still exists ssvera
unknown planets Of considerable siZ
above Neptune, some Of which may ye
? / BE- discovered IF Neptune were n
! outermost planet" he said. the orb
: would not be so round. for this eireu
larity of the orbit indicates that Yep
tune revolved for a long time agains
great resistance, and therefore tn
q neb41Is at that distance was dens
{ enough, to have afforded matter for ssy
! eraI other planets beyond SO that eve
with the most powerful telescope, v
4 have as yet by no means reached IN
| outer limits OF the solar system"