Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2016
Items of scientific knowledge at any moment in time have pre-histories when they were debated, doubted, or absolutely denied. The examples considered here are the admitted facts that star formation is an on-going process in the Milky Way, that there are young moving groups (the products of young star clusters in the process of dissolution and perhaps more complex processes), and that planets orbiting other stars are common. It is hard to imagine any of these ceasing to be part of core astronomical knowledge, but you are advised not to place large bets on this.