One of the ongoing questions facing astrophysicists is determining the conditions under which solar systems can form around stars. In 1944, German astronomer C. F. von Weizsäcker formed a hypothesis for the origin of our own solar system. His elegant theory described how a dust cloud surrounding the Sun broke up into a system of vortices. As the energy fields expanded, this whirling mass increased in size, and matter coalesced at the boundaries of groups of vortices, leading to the formation of planets.