re: Solar mystery
Back when astronomers were buying into the Jeans' theory
of solar system formation - essentially that a passing star
pulled material off the Sun which cooled and formed into the
planets - many of them also took this to reason that planetary
systems were very rare, since the odds of one star passing by
another just right to pull out material for making planets seemed
literally astronomical.
But now if a version of this theory has gained a bit of credence,
how does this explain all the other solar systems we have already
found? Did they form via the Nebula Idea and we were the ones
who got skimmed by another star?