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First Oort Cloud Object May Have Been Discovered
SpuriousLogic alerts us to the discovery of what may be the first object ever discovered from the inner edge of the Oort cloud. 2006 SQ372 was found on images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Its discoverers theorize that this comet-like object and the planetoid Sedna, first spotted in 2003, might be Oort denizens. Sedna is in a stable orbit but 2006 SQ372 has been perturbed by the gravity of Uranus and/or Neptune, simulations suggest, so its orbital history is unknowable. 2006 SQ372 will travel out to 1,600 AU on this orbit, making it the most distant solar-system object yet found. The Oort cloud is believed to extend ten times that far, or about a quarter of a light-year. "Theoretical models of the formation of the Oort Cloud predict that it should also host a massive inner part, but comets from this region never make it near Earth. To see the long-period comets from the inner region of the Oort Cloud requires observing comets whose orbits always stay well outside Saturn's orbit — like 2006 SQ372."
I thought the article was about some new object oriented relational type (OORT) which now exists in Amazon's S3 cloud.
the planetoid Sedna
Wouldn't that be a plutoid?
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Something tells me that a lot of people are going to be looking up Oort Cloud on Wikipedia in the next few minutes... the article summary is nice and scientificky but it hardly explains what's going on in simple terms - the article is actually more summarised than the summary!
For reference, see the article itself or:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud
Offsite backups seem like a good idea to me. How about you?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It seems that Sedna is sometimes regarded as an inner Oort Cloud object. But this seems to be disputed since it's a lot closer than the supposed location of the Oort Cloud but much farther away than the Kuiper Belt objects.
Does this
SQ372 has been perturbed by the gravity of Uranus
I can't help but feel there's a "Yo Mama" joke in there somewhere...
Was I the only one that saw a 'Matrix' reference there?
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
This leaves me wondering if an object from the Oort cloud may have met a fateful ending with what is now the objects that form the Asteroid Belt. There has long been the notion that the debris that makes up this particular region of our solar system was once a planet that may have been destroyed early in the formation of our star system. At some point a major solar system even took place some time during the mid stages of the planet formation. The scarring of the Moon, Mars, and other inner planets indicate such an event took place.
I'm willing to go as far as to say it was one of these objects that was responsible for the destruction of a now ghost planet between Mars and Jupiter.
Too much hyping. This object seems to be a scattered Kiper Belt object than an Oort Cloud object. Why? Its orbit crosses Neptune's orbit, which means it is strongly influenced by the planet's gravity. Sedna is different, because it never comes near Neptune. That doesn't mean that Sedna is an Oort Cloud object since its aphelion (most distant point of orbit) is not far enough. This newly-found object has a longer orbit, but compared to some long-period comets that originate from the Cloud and which can take several tens of thousands to millions of years to complete one orbit this is not at all unusual.
Sedna is supposed to have resulted from an interaction between the Oort cloud and a distant passage of another Star in the past. That means that there is a good chance (30% or so) that it belonged to the OTHER stars Oort cloud.
2006 SQ372 has an even more irregular orbit which is unstable to boot. The same sort of arguments will apply to this object, and so there is a decent chance that it, too, will prove to come from another solar system.
Ah... no - The Oort cloud estimated mass is greater than the Earth. About 50 times Earth as I recall, but that is much less than Jupiter even. Not more massive than the Sun.
While there is nothing to say such an object exists, imagine a large body with an orbital period of hundreds of thousands of years. If it were on an orbit which brought it directly towards the earth, how would we know ? Sure they might detect the object, but it is possible for it not to appear to move against the rest of the sky. AFAIK, most discoveries of large objects are because of their apparent movement, but relative distance between earth and such objects is not monitored as easily. Unless they start passing in front of closer objects, they're not very easy to identify as "incoming". Ok, you can calculate direction based on either red or blue shift, but that technique is of more use with stars, not dark rocky bodies.
"[I'm] perturbed by the gravity of Uranus"
I've always had a hard time swallowing the concept of an "oort cloud" - I view it as a hypethetical construct to explain the existance of long period comets. The ONLY reason the Oort cloud is thought to exist is because it's a reasonable solution to the origin of these objects. Of course other sources for long period comets are ignored - especially the exploded planet hypothesis. It's too "fringe" to think these objects could have had a local origin. If you show that there is strong evidence that comets originated from a solar system body that "exploded" the need for the oort cloud vanishes.
Just like 'dark energy' and 'dark matter'. The standard model is crumbling. I do not predict where it will go.
SQ372 has been perturbed by the gravity of Uranus
That's what she said!
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I mean...what if there's Tyranids hiding there?!
Plutoids, Micktoids, Donaldtoids....
From what I can read here, I am surrounded by a bucha Gooftoids.
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- aqk
F U
"As with all press, there should be some scientific clarifications. First, this is not the first Oort Cloud object ever found. The family of Long Period Comets is thought to originate from the Oort Cloud as well; they are so loosely bound to the Sun that a passing gravitational perturbation can shift their perihelia past Jupiter/Saturn and into the inner Solar System where we see them as comets. Sedna is also arguably an Oort Cloud object, since its detached from interactions with current Solar System planets. As always, the syntax (comet, TNO, minor planet, inner Oort Cloud, outer Oort Cloud) can be severely limiting. What we've done in the study of this object is simulate objects on orbits like this one (viewing it in semi-major axis [a] vs perihelion [q] space) from the trans-Neptunian scattered disk, as well as from the Oort Cloud. What we find is that, as expected, we can form 2006 SQ372 orbits from both populations of objects (this has been noted on several of the articles, that it could just be an object scattered from the trans-Neptunian disk). However, what we find is that objects on orbits like this one are *far* more likely to originate from the Oort Cloud. So while we can't say for sure that this particular object came from the Oort Cloud, we can say that objects on orbits like this one (again viewed in a vs q) come from the Oort Cloud in a greater than 50 to 1 ratio. In addition, it probably was scattered in from that part of the Oort Cloud with a 10,000 AU. I.e. the "inner" part. This portion is more tightly bound to the Sun, and responds to gravitational perturbations with more subtle shifts in orbit. Thus they can't skip past Jupiter/Saturn, actually tend to encounter them, and are then scattered out of the Solar System. So the only way to get a handle on this population is to see them before they get too close to Jupiter/Saturn. This is the case with 2006 SQ372."
So, where are the dragonriders? Will they save us from [repeat] Thread[s]?