OORT CLOUD

While stargazing at night, we thought there is nothing between the star and us. But maybe we are wrong. A Dutch astronomer named Jan Oort

discovered the Oort cloud. Oort cloud is a cloud or we can say a spherical shell of comets revolving in the highly elliptical orbit of a period of more than thousands of years. 

They are the leftovers of planets, which are thrown outward by the mighty of Jupiter by the method called gravitational slingshot.

        Fig1:- Scale of Oort cloud

Size or thickness

We, humans, are not accurate about its thickness but we roughly know that its thickness is between 2 to 3 light-years, which is a huge distance our closest neighbor star Proxima Centauri is 4 light-years away. Our one of the fastest space probes Voyager1 with its current speed will enter the Oort cloud nearly 300 years from now and will leave 3,00,000 years. Now you can imagine its size. 

 

            Fig2:- Oort cloud 

Theories related to Oort cloud

Nemesis theory:- 

According to this theory, a brown dwarf star is present in the Oort cloud, which is disturbing the orbit of comets and sending them to their solar system.

Since brown dwarf doesn't have their light, they can't see through unaided eyes or with giant telescopes.

Theories related to the Extinction of Dinosaurs:-

Many theories suggest that the comet that killed the Dinosaurs came from the Oort cloud. And we don't know if we are the next target of that Oort cloud comets.

See you in the next Post!