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First Oort Cloud Object May Have Been Discovered

Posted by kdawson on from the lands-where-the-jumblies-live dept.

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."

4 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Oops, Oort. by symbolset · · Score: 3, Interesting
    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?

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    1. Re:Oops, Oort. by religious+freak · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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...

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  2. Re:interraction with the Kuiper Belt by palemantle · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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).

  3. Not an Oort Cloud object by Nulukkhizdin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.