The Oort cloud – the mysterious shell of frozen objects at Solar system edge – Could we have a spiral pair of arms that make him look like a miniature galaxy, suggest new research.
The exact shape of the oort cloud and how it is affected by forces beyond our solar system So far, he has remained mysterious. Now, the researchers have developed a new model that suggests that the inner structure of the Oort cloud can look like a spiral disc. They published their results on February 16 on the preparation server arxivThis means that work has not yet been evaluated by peers.
The Oort cloud began as the unused remains of the giant planets of the solar system (Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Saturn) after their training 4.6 billion years ago. Some of these remains are so large, they could be considered dwarf planets.
While these planets began to orbit around the sun, their movements kicked the excess material far beyond the orbit of Pluto, where they reside today. The interior edge of the Oort Cloud is around 2,000 to 5,000 astronomical sun units, and its outside edge is located between 10,000 and 100,000 in. (A AU is around 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers – About the average distance from the earth to the sun.)
In relation: Planet Nine: Is the search for this elusive world almost finished?
This means that even at its current speed of about a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) per day, NasaThe Voyager 1 spacecraft will not reach the Oort cloud for 300 years and will not take it out for 300,000 others.
This extreme distance means that the bodies in the cloud are too small and weak – and moving too slowly – to be directly imagined even by the most powerful telescopes. Most of our evidence for this come from long -term comets – “snowballs” of ice and dust made the cloud in orbit around the sun by gravitational disturbances.
Spirals in the spirals?
To better understand what the Oort cloud might look like, the researchers behind the new study used information from the orbits comets And the gravitational forces inside and beyond our solar system to build a model of the Oort Cloud structure.
A key to understanding the shape of the oort cloud is the “galactic tide” – the tugs made by the stars, the black holes and the center of our galaxy which have a crucial influence on the objects of the Oort cloud but, for The objects closer to the sun, are masked by the gravity of our star.
When scientists directed this model through the Supercalculator of the Pleiads de la Nasa, it spits a structure for the inner part of the cloud (the most densely populated region, located from 1,000 to 10,000 in the sun) which resembles the disc spiral of the spiral disc of the spiral disc of the spiral disc of the Milky Way. Depending on the model, the arms of this inner cloud of the Oort extend 15,000 at end to end.
To confirm this structure by observations, the researchers will have to follow the objects directly or choose the reflected light from all the other background and leading sources. The two are incredibly difficult tasks that have not yet had any resources dedicated to them.
But the researchers think that, if we want to understand where the comets come from, how our solar system has evolved and the continuous impact of the cloud in our cosmic district, it could be a good idea to start looking.
Solar system quiz: Do you know our cosmic district well?