Oort cloud

NASA diagram shows the presumed distance of the Oort Cloud compared to the Solar System planets, the Kuiper Belt, and the orbit of Sedna.

The Oort cloud is the hypothetical region, said to be 50,000 to 100,000 AU in radius, that contains many billions of comets in orbit around the Sun. It is the supposed source of all observed long-period comets in the solar system.[1]

## Contents

* 1 Background
* 2 Observable Bodies in the Oort Cloud
* 3 Problems with the Oort Cloud Hypothesis
* 4 An alternative hypothesis
* 5 References

## Background[edit]

Comets are divided into two groups, the long-period and the short-. A comet having a period longer than 200 years is considered long-period.[1][2] The two groups have the following characteristics, with occasional exceptions:

1. Short-period comets orbit prograde around the Sun and with little or no inclination with respect to the ecliptic.
2. Long-period comets are as likely to be in retrograde as in prograde orbits, and have been observed to have any inclination with respect to the ecliptic.[1]

Weisstein observes that the aphelia of long-period comets are distributed about two modes: 10,000 AU and 50,000 AU.[1]

Faulkner observes that Comet Halley, a short-period comet, is highly inclined and in a retrograde orbit. Comet Halley is, therefore, an important exception to the distinction. Faulkner also observes that short-period comets do not differ from long-period comets in composition.[2]

Cometary orbits are highly elliptical,[2] and some of these orbits are almost parabolic.[1] Hyperbolic cometary orbits have never been observed.[2] This last observation is credited to Jan Oort himself.[3]

The more important point is that comets have a limited life span. After a few hundred perihelion passes at the Sun, a comet loses all of its tail-forming substance.[4] In addition, comets often destroy themselves in collision with planets and other bodies, or are ejected from the solar system entirely after making close flybys of Jupiter and other gas giants.[2][4][5]

For these reasons, astronomers realized that the supply of comets would require replenishment over the supposed great age of the solar system. Comets cannot be interstellar, else they would have hyperbolic orbits. Some astronomers have proposed cryovulcanism as the source of comets, but comets are not sufficiently dissimilar in composition to support this.[2]

In 1950, astronomer Jan Oort first proposed the existence of a "cloud of comets" in the outer fringes of the solar system.[6][7] Oort calculated that this cloud might contain a trillion comets.[3] Short-period comets are supposed to come from the Kuiper Belt.[1][2][3][8] Oort originally speculated that the total mass of the Oort cloud would be as much as the mass of Jupiter. More recent studies have suggested that the total mass might be forty times the mass of the earth.[5]

## Observable Bodies in the Oort Cloud[edit]

The Oort Cloud is allegedly primarily composed of very faint comets, which are not detectable by telescopes on earth. However, a number of larger objects resembling comets in composition have been discovered. To date these Trans-Neptunian objects are as follows:

* 90377 Sedna, an object from the inner Oort cloud. It's highly elliptical orbit is among the largest in the solar system, barring comets.[9]
* 136108 Haumea, an object from the Kuiper belt, not strictly an Oort Cloud object. It's elongated shape is of interest to astronomers and others.
* 136472 Makemake, another Kuiper Belt object, it is the largest known object in the Kuiper belt.
* 50000 Quaoar, another object from the inner Oort Cloud. It has a surprisingly circular orbit, unusual for an Oort Cloud object. It has a moon, Weywot.
* Eris, the most massive trans-neptunian object. It is 27% more massive than Pluto, and has one moon, Dysomnia.
* Long period Comets. They tend to have highly elliptical orbits, similar to that of 90377 Sedna, and have enormous orbital periods.

## Problems with the Oort Cloud Hypothesis[edit]

1. The Oort cloud itself has never been directly observed. Most astronomers believe that individual comets would be unobservable so far away.[2][3]
2. Collisions between comets, over the course of billions of years, would have destroyed most of them by now, leaving only a combined mass for the entire Oort cloud of 1 to 3.5 times the total mass of the earth.[5] Such a low mass is far less likely to have supplied the inner solar system with comets over billions of years. For that reason, astronomers are now speculating that the Oort cloud must have its own even more-distant supply.[5]
3. Comets have twenty times the concentration of deuterium (heavy hydrogen) found in the inner solar system. If, according to current models, the material in the Oort cloud came from inside the solar system, this would not be the case.[10]
4. The suggested formation mechanism for comets is the accretion of water vapor from the solar nebula, according to the nebula hypothesis. Such accretion would likely be stopped by simple Brownian motion.[10]

## An alternative hypothesis[edit]

Young earth creationists generally propose that the solar system is much younger than billions of years. In the six thousand years usually proposed, attrition of comets would not have destroyed many of them. Therefore, no source of replacement comets would be necessary.

## References[edit]

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Weisstein, Eric W. "Oort Cloud." Eric Weisstein's World of Astronomy, 1996-2007. Accessed June 2, 2008
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Faulkner, Danny. "Comets and the Age of the Solar System." TJ, 11(3):264-273, December 1997. Accessed June 2, 2008.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Arnett, Bill. "The Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud." The ~~Nine~~ 8 Planets, March 18, 2007. Accessed June 2, 2008.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Arnett, Bill. "Comets." The ~~Nine~~ 8 Planets, May 1, 2003. Accessed June 2, 2008.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Faulkner, Danny. "More problems for the 'Oort comet cloud'." Journal of Creation 15(2):11, August 2001. Accessed June 2, 2008.
6. ↑ Tenn, Joseph S. "The Bruce Medalists: Jan Hendrik Oort." Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sonoma State University, October 11, 2006. Accessed June 2, 2008.
7. ↑ Oort, J.H., 1950. The structure of the cometary cloud surrounding the solar system and a hypothesis concerning its origin. Bulletin of Astronomy of the Netherlands, 11:91–110.
8. ↑ Harvey, Samantha. "Solar System Exploration: Oort Cloud." NASA, March 29, 2006. Accessed June 2, 2008.
9. ↑ http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/16mar_sedna/ accessed 5/25/2013
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Brown, Walt. "The Origin of Comets." In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, May 28, 2008. Accessed June 2, 2008.

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