Hi Larry

Andrew Prentice has been working on his cosmogonic theory, the Modern Laplacian Theory, for over 30 years, after developing it with his mentor D. ter Haar, who had developed it for some time before that. Basically the theory requires the proto-solar cloud to rotate as a unit, and to shed momentum and mass via a series of gas/dust rings at semi-logarithmic intervals. The planets form out of the coalescing rings, and because the proto-Sun has a different temperature and pressure at each shedding the chemistry for each planetary ring is different. The major planets in turn form in a similar manner shedding a series of regular moons (the Galileans, and Saturn, Uranus & Neptune's inner moons), and capturing various rogue bodies (Titan and Triton) that formed in their trojan points.

With every Outer Planet probe he has released a set of predictions for the make-up of the moons, and a set of post-dictions afterwards. He's had a few hits and a few misses, but the theory itself crashed and burned in its original form. In 2003 he did a few simulations which showed a convective profile that would produce the rings the theory required - with a bit of nudging - ,but his old theory went in the bin. The new version still makes rings, but has a slightly lower "handwavium" factor.

A guy I knew was one of his students - Prentice is a maths professor in Melbourne - and thought he was a bit weird. I don't know about that, but if nothing else he's persistent and has gotten NASA's ear more than a few times. Most of his old papers are available on NASA's ADS server and well worth a read. The rest are in "Icarus" and "Earth, Moon & Planets".

Adam