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I don't think it refers to the luminiferous aether (ether), which was proposed as the background medium which carried light.
From his observations, Herschel proposed that there were luminous materials in nebulae that were not stars. The resisting medium was probably the diffuse materials he believed occupied space. Laplace later developed the idea which became known as the nebular hypothesis. He proposed that rotating nebulae flattened into rings that formed the planets.
Regards, Rob.
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