Bickerton. — On Cosmic Impact. 553 



nebulas, double, temporary, and variable stars, and star-clusters 

 — all tbe result of the impact of stars. These, as the theory 

 requires, are almost entirely found within the Milky Way. 



66. If the universe were formed by such a graze as we 

 describe we should expect a greater density of stars in those 

 parts of space where their motion chiefly directs the two 

 original universes. Proctor speaks of two such clustering 

 masses as striking features of our universe. 



67. If the universe were the result of impact there would 

 be much community of motion in adjacent stars. This is a 

 remarkable peculiarity of the stars in the Galactic Ring. A 

 large number of further coincidences are debated in my papers 

 " On the Visible Universe." 



The Solar System. 



68. Nebulas must tend to entrap bodies passing through 

 them. Such bodies would frequently become orbitally con- 

 nected with the nebula. Then, when the nebula, with these 

 bodies, became a sun, it would produce a system with planets 

 in all azimuths, in the same way as the comets that our solar 

 system has entrapped are in all azimuths. 



69. Were a sun to impact with such a body or with a dense 

 star-cluster, and were the graze considerable, all the planets 

 would be whirled roughly into one plane, and the central mass 

 would become a bun-shaped nebula. 



70. It is not improbable that our sun was formed by an 

 incipient star-cluster impacting with a nebulous sun, and that 

 the present solar system constitutes a large part of the whole 

 impacting mass. In other words, it is probable that there 

 was not a large ratio of the original bodies dissipated into 

 space during the impact, but it is probable that the impact 

 was a large-ratio collision. 



71. It is to be supposed that in every impact much 

 matter will leave the system. Some of the gas extruded by 

 the pressure acting along the axis will be lost, w T ith much of 

 the hydrogen. The attraction, therefore, on the return of the 

 planets may be so much lessened by these losses that the 

 orbits may be converted into an approximation to a circle. 

 The nebula would expand enormously ; all the matter of it 

 that might pass outside aphelion distance would not aid in 

 attracting the planet back. Perihelion distance would thus 

 be increased by this agency. 



72. Of course, at first the rotation on their axes of the 

 new-constituted planets would be in all possible directions. 

 Thus, the axes may be in the ecliptic, or the motion may be 

 retrograde. The order observed in the rotation of the inner 

 planets will be established afterwards, the outer planets largely 

 escaping these agencies. 



