> formation from a rotating disk of gas and dust the belief that planets are formed through the accretion of matter from circumstellar disks is no longer the pillar of planetary science it used to be. for one thing, it has been pointed out that if the planets were formed from the same nebular disk from which the sun itself was born, the sun's equator should lie in the planetary plane. why, then, is it tilted over at an angle of 7.25? cosmogonists, who are only concerned with how the solar system formed, argue that this angle "is so close to zero that it really doesn't matter." cosmologists, who are concerned about the entire universe, rightly claim that 7.25 is hardly zero. cosmogonists have since covered their asses by assuming that since the sun is believed to be losing mass, it might have slipped a little. others have indicated that it is hard to fathom how the outer planets could have formed in the outer reaches of the sun's nebular disk where matter would have been so spread out that it would not have been able to clump together in the allotted time. most astronomers felt quite unhappy with this. the birth of planets by ejection from stars, which is gaining wider acceptance by astronomers, seems all the more plausible.
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