The layout of the solar system, including the Oort Cloud, on a logarithmic scale.
Credit: NASA
Posted on 08/10/2015 4:36:14 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The Oort Cloud is a theoretical spherical cloud of predominantly icy planetesimals that is believed to surround the Sun at a distance of up to around 100,000 AU (2 ly). This places it in interstellar space, beyond the Sun’s Heliosphere where it defines the cosmological boundary between the Solar System and the region of the Sun’s gravitational dominance.
Like the Kuiper Belt and the Scattered Disc, the Oort Cloud is a reservoirs of trans-Neptunian objects, though it is over a thousands times more distant from our Sun as these other two. The idea of a cloud of icy infinitesimals was first proposed in 1932 by Estonian astronomer Ernst Öpik, who postulated that long-period comets originated in an orbiting cloud at the outermost edge of the Solar System.
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Based on the analyses of past comets, the vast majority of Oort Cloud objects are composed of icy volatiles – such as water, methane, ethane, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, and ammonia. The appearance of asteroids thought to be originating from the Oort Cloud has also prompted theoretical research that suggests that the population consists of 1-2% asteroids.
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The Oort cloud is thought to be a remnant of the original protoplanetary disc that formed around the Sun approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The most widely accepted hypothesis is that the Oort cloud’s objects initially coalesced much closer to the Sun as part of the same process that formed the planets and minor planets, but that gravitational interaction with young gas giants such as Jupiter ejected them into extremely long elliptic or parabolic orbits.
Recent research by NASA suggests that a large number of Oort cloud objects are the product of an exchange of materials between the Sun and its sibling stars as they formed and drifted apart.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
I was told it glowed green under blacklight and it ignites if you light a match at the point of the Oort.
It’s what happens when I leave the bathroom after a night of Taco Bell.
It's oort of this world?
The more important question is, who pays for it.
Oorts?
Don't ask don't tell.
So is it moving through space with us, or waiting for us to pass through?
It's the bubble of gas left behind by a FOort.
Oh gawd...
You just won the internet.
We can all go home now.
Bookmark
So..., exactly when did the world “cloud” get replaced by the word “butt”...?
When did the word “cloud”....
I hate not being able to edit out errors after posting....
“Cloud”
If I remember my astrophysics class, the oort cloud is not theoretical.
C-L-O-U-D....
They reach these things as if they're proven science, but no telescope has ever seen this "cloud".
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