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."

Comments

Oops, Oort.

[symbolset]

Just to make you paranoid, the sum of the mass of oort cloud objects is far more than the mass of the sun and all the planets. There's a lot of stuff out there and the only thing we know about it is that only the tiny fraction that are comets visit us now and then. The Oort cloud could hold a planetary mass comet on a collision course with Earth and we would know about it only right before the event or just after.

Offsite backups seem like a good idea to me. How about you?

Re:Oops, Oort.

[religious freak]

Isn't there some kind of crackpot theory that the Oort cloud houses an extra "dark star" that disrupts our solar system once every eon or so?

Anybody know if this a theory, or I'm I just ready for bed? I can't seem to find any info on it. Maybe I heard it on Art Bell years ago, in which case I AM ready for bed...

interraction with the Kuiper Belt

[Neuropol]

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.

Re:interraction with the Kuiper Belt

[palemantle]

Interesting thought that.

Let me be pedantic for a minute and state that the Kuiper Belt != the Oort cloud.
The Kuiper Belt and the scattered disc have been studied/observed quite a bit. The Oort cloud, on the other hand, is hypothetical (which certainly does not mean that it doesnt exist). The "boundaries" of the inner Oort cloud are thought to begin well beyond the scattered disk, which in turn extends beyond the Kuiper belt (although the two may well overlap).

Not an Oort Cloud object

[Nulukkhizdin]

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.

Re:Oort Cloud

[jomiolto]

Something tells me that a lot of people are going to be looking up Oort Cloud on Wikipedia in the next few minutes...

Not me, since I was a victim of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. But something tells me that people who read this message are going to be looking Wikipedia for something else...

For reference, see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader-Meinhof_Phenomenon

This could be from another solar system

[mbone]

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.

Re:Confusing title

[Zashi]

I'll probably get modded off-topic for this, but I just made a new website (link in sig). The reason why I'm posting in the thread for this article is.. well look at the name.

And I just made this site too (well, remade). Majority of the code and html was written yesterday. Small universe I guess.