Discovery at the edge of the Solar System

Image...
"The Oort Cloud is a spherical cloud of comets believed to lie roughly 50,000 AU, or nearly a light-year from the Sun, which places the cloud at nearly a quarter of the distance to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun. The Kuiper belt and scattered disc, the other two known reservoirs of trans-Neptunian objects, are less than one thousandth the Oort cloud's distance. The outer extent of the Oort cloud defines the boundary of our Solar System..."

  1. groups:
    Tech,   News,   Green,   Culture,   5 more
  2. tags:
    News,  Culture,  WTF,  Green, 9 more + add
EddieStarr
  • added August 19, 2008

44 comments // Discovery at the edge of the Solar System

  •  

    Maybe it's god....Ha, i'm just kidding

    smartcafe
  •  

    um, when it comes to the universe, I'm sure there are going to be many discoveries, NASA, you have a long way to go guys, so pack up your lunch boxes with fresh peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because you have a long day ahead of you!!!!

    Mobius2012
  •  

    and whats up with all the Latin titles?, the solar system is one big Latin Fest , I'm not to enthusiastic about the titles. Proxima Centauri? BullShi.....I name it AMINA which is the name of an African Queen-

    QUEEN Of ZARIA (1588-1589)
    This queen of Zazzua, a province of Nigeria now known as Zaria, was born around 1533 during the reign of Sarkin (king) Zazzau Nohir. She was probably his granddaughter. Zazzua was one of a number of Hausa city-states which dominated the trans-Saharan trade after the collapse of the Songhai empire to the west. Its wealth was due to trade of mainly leather goods, cloth, kola, salt, horses and imported metals. At the age of sixteen, Amina became the heir apparent (Magajiya) to her mother, Bakwa of Turunku, the ruling queen of Zazzua. With the title came the responsibility for a ward in the city and daily councils with other officials. Although her mother's reign was known for peace and prosperity, Amina also chose to learn military skills from the warriors. Queen Bakwa died around 1566 and the reign of Zazzua passed to her younger brother Karama. At this time Amina emerged as the leading warrior of Zazzua cavalry. Her military achievements brought her great wealth and power. When Karama died after a ten-year rule, Amina became queen of Zazzua. She set off on her first military expedition three months after coming to power and continued fighting until her death. In her thirty-four year reign, she expanded the domain of Zazzua to its largest size ever. Her main focus, however, was not on annexation of neighboring lands, but on forcing local rulers to accept vassal status and permit Hausa traders safe passage. She is credited with popularizing the earthen city wall fortifications, which became characteristic of Hausa city-states since then. She ordered building of a defensive wall around each military camp that she established. Later, towns grew within these protective walls, many of which are still in existence. They're known as "ganuwar Amina", or Amina's walls. She is mostly remembered as "Amina, Yar Bakwa ta san rana," meaning "Amina, daughter of Nikatau, a woman as capable as a man.
    Contributed by Danuta Bois

    Mobius2012
  •  

    so, is our sun the hot core nucleus of the Oort cloud?
    it sounds as if the Oort cloud is like the membrane of our solar system.

    but the title of the article is confusing me: the scoop is 2006 SQ372, not the Oort cloud. it sounds as if they already know a significant amount about the Oort cloud. It's the tiny planet they decided to name "2006 SQ372" that they've discovered.

  •  

    The Oort Cloud isn't the new discovery here, it's been know about for many many years. The real discovery (buried 4 paragraphs into the source article!) is a new planetoid in the Oort cloud - a Pluto-sized object.

    Source article = journalistic FAIL.

    digitrash
  •  

    Is it me or do all things in space look serious cool?

    thekingbeyond
  •  

    It's certainly not "new," look at the date of the picture, 1985.

    1985, isn't that when Marty Mcfly went back to the future?

    recommended by huntre
    celestialceiling
  •  

    Cool.

    torybart
  •  

    At the edge of our solar system out by pluto, that's not too far. I guess it will get to us by 2012 the Mayan end of the planet.

    kennymotown
  •  

    So, Planet X is just a large piece of ice!

    Vierotchka
  •  

    It is amazing how beautiful our Universe is.

    MrGalt107
  •  

    Some awesome responses, thank you everyone!

    EddieStarr
  •  

    I love that their is something that big relatively close to us and we are just finding out about it. Its stuff like this that makes me realize how long things have been going on without us! Trippy.

    mookster_07
  •  

    Pfffft. I made one o' them in "Shop".

    huntre
  •  

    Comets have seeded the earth with water and life and have most likely at other times done the same for the other planets in our solar system. We are in a galactic nursery.

  •  

    Global Warming + Giant Chunk of Ice = Problem Solved.

    thetrimsmith
  •  

    I am confused since how can this be new if it was discoved in 1984?

    Argon18
  •  

    The cometary membrane of the Oort Cloud and Kupier Belt actively feeds water to the interior planets, with some 20 to 40 ton water-ice comets hitting the earth's atmosphere 5 to 30 times per minute. Simulations show that Kuiper belt comets simply don't fall directly toward Earth's neighborhood but plod their way toward the inner solar system in stairstep fashion. It turns out that the massive outer planets are almost exactly spaced so that they "hand-off" comets from one to the other. At each step the powerful gravitational field of Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter might either eject the comet from the solar system or pass it onto the next planet inside their orbit.

    ++++++++++++

    This is the most exciting part of the article....

    jubal
  •  

    Powerful, I love it.

    Travelista
  •  

    That was too much science for one website article.

    But besides that, I think this is amazing and we will continue to be amazed by what we find in our solar system. Just wait till we find the pearly gates. That'll really be something to get happy over!

  •  

    If it is so close, could it become a prob;em in the future? We'll see I guess...

    Logos51891
  •  

    Clouds of comets...and we think it's all about us.

    24French
  •  

    Could you repeat that? I lost you at Proxima Centauri...?

    iokua_2003
  •  

    this is a pretty bad title for this article, there ain't nothin' new about the Oort cloud in and of itself.

    logicpocket
  •  

    Again I say, we are still getting things here on Earth wrong. Of course we're going to discover more and more and more.....

    yaget1chance
1 - 25 of 28

Add your comment

keep browsing
Tech
News
Green

current videos