Astrophys Space Sci 1988 ;144:357-72
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, USA.
Alfvén in his early work on the origin of the solar system (1942-1946) noted a pronounced band structure in the gravitational potential distribution of secondary bodies, and suggested this feature to be directly related to the formation process. When the critical velocity phenomenon was later discovered, a close agreement was found between the planet-satellite bands on one hand, and the critical velocity limits of the major compound elements in the interstellar medium on the other, suggesting a specific emplacement mechanism for the dusty plasma which presumably constituted the solar nebula. Since the originally perceived band structure was outlined in a qualitative fashion, an attempt is made here to analyze the distribution by a statistical technique, testing the significance of clustering of the observational data in the bands. Read More