The Oort Cloud is a hypothetical belt around the solar system filled with asteroids and comets. To date, no telescope has yet been able to detect such small objects at a considerable distance, but a lot of indirect evidence indicates that a similar formation exists at the far edges of our star system. However, one should not confuse the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud. The first one is also similar to the asteroid belt and includes many
small entities. It was discovered relatively recently, in the 2000s, when it was discovered that celestial bodies revolve around the Sun beyond the orbit of Pluto, some of which are even larger than the ninth planet, but not all of them had a clear and cleared orbit, constantly shifting in their trajectories influenced by each other. A dilemma arose: on the one hand, they could hardly be called planets, but on the other hand, they are larger than Pluto in size. Then, for the first time in history, modern scientists created a clear list of criteria that a celestial body must meet in order to carry the status of a planet. As a result, Pluto lost this status. In recent years, scientists have discovered dozens of objects in the Kuiper belt. Mostthe largest of them are Eris and Sedna.
What is the Oort cloud?
If the Kuiper belt objects are quite accessible to modern telescopes, then the bodies of this cloud are separated from the Sun by a whole light year. It is still quite difficult to examine them directly in telescopes at such a distance. At the same time, astrophysicists have already discovered dozens of planets even in other star systems, but, firstly, these are almost all giant planets like Jupiter, and secondly, they are observed not by themselves, but due to the gravitational influence on their star. However, the Oort cloud literally sends us a lot of evidence of its existence. We are talking about comets that come to the solar system with constant periodicity, being messengers of this sphere. Perhaps the most famous example is Halley's comet. The Oort cloud was named after a Dutch astrophysicist who, in the middle of the 20th century, predicted its discovery based on observations of long-period comets. This sphere, like the Kuiper belt, is made up of trans-Neptunian objects, which in turn are composed primarily of ice, as well as methane, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, ethane, and other substances. It is very likely that stone objects can also rotate there.
Origin of the Orb
Modern astrophysicists believe that the Kuiper belt, the Oort cloud is what is left of the substances that formed the solar system, but were not included in any of the planets. About five billion years ago, most of the matterexploded star of the first generation (that is, formed relatively soon after the Big Bang) due to gravity and millions of years of compaction was transformed into a new star - the Sun. A small part of this protoplanetary spinning disk gathered into huge chunks and formed the planets of our system. The rest of the dust and small objects of the nebula were thrown to the very edge of the solar system, forming the Kuiper belt and the very distant sphere of the Oort cloud.
