Page:The Solar System - Six Lectures - Lowell.djvu/44



of the mass; a maximum by its equal division into two or more. If we calculate the moment of momentum of the Solar System to-day, and compare it with that of any binary system, we shall find it in comparison almost vanishingly small.

The system, 61 Cygni, with only one fifth of its mass, has a moment of momentum two hundred and fifty times as great, and that of Centauri, which has twice the mass, has two thousand times the moment.

This means that in the region of space, which made room to the solar nebula, the individual motions must have been either small or equally large in all directions, the negative motions almost exactly cancelling out with the positive ones.