The Movement of Small Particulate Matter in the Early Solar System and the Formation of Satellites

Extract

Satellites are a common feature in the solar system, and all planets on which satellite orbits would be stable possess them. (For Mercury the solar perturbation is too large, and the retrograde spin of Venus would cause satellites to spiral in to the planet through tidal friction.) An explanation of the formation of satellites must hence be one which makes the phenomenon exceedingly probable at some stage in the solar system formation processes, and very improbable processes like a capture cannot be the answer in most cases.

Small particulate matter must have been very abundant in the early solar nebula. Such particulate matter must have existed both from the first condensation of the low vapor pressure components of the gas in the first round, and it must also have been composed of material scattered from impacts after some major bodies had begun to form, frequently finding themselves no doubt on collision orbits.