What was the main criticism leveled against the older tidal hypothesis concerning planetary motion?

Answer

The tidal hypothesis offered no satisfactory explanation for why the planets moved in the same direction or resided in a flat plane.

The nebular hypothesis replaced older ideas like the tidal hypothesis, which postulated that planets formed from material violently ripped out of the Sun due to the passage of another massive star. While this older model provided a way to eject matter, it could not explain the highly ordered dynamics observed in our Solar System. Specifically, the tidal hypothesis offered no physical mechanism to ensure that the ejected material would coalesce into planets that all orbited in the same direction (prograde) or were confined to an incredibly narrow, coplanar band (the ecliptic). The nebular model, relying on the physics of a collapsing, rotating fluid, naturally predicted this observed alignment, making the tidal theory scientifically inadequate for explaining the system's current state.

What was the main criticism leveled against the older tidal hypothesis concerning planetary motion?

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