The Oort cloud and the Kuiper belt are the boundary bodies of the Solar System

The Oort cloud is a hypothetical belt around the solar system, filled with asteroids and comets. To date, no telescope has yet been able to detect such small objects at a considerable distance, but many indirect evidence indicate that there is a similar education at the far reaches of our star system. However, the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud should not be confused. The first is also similar to the asteroid belt and includes many Small subjects. It was discovered relatively recently, in the 2000s when it was discovered that behind the Sun the orbiting bodies rotate around the Sun , some of them even larger than the ninth planet, but not all of them had a clear and cleared orbit, constantly shifting in their Trajectory under the influence of each other. There was a dilemma: on the one hand, they could hardly be called planets, but on the other hand, they are larger than Pluto. Then for the first time in history, modern scientists have created a clear list of criteria that the heavenly body must meet in order to carry the status of the planet. As a result, Pluto lost this status. In recent years, scientists have discovered dozens of objects in the Kuiper belt. The largest of them are Eris and Sedna.

And what is the Oort Cloud?

If the objects of the Kuiper belt are fully accessible to modern telescopes, then the bodies of this cloud are separated from the sun for a whole light year. It is rather difficult to consider them directly at telescopes at this distance. At the same time, astrophysicists have already discovered dozens of planets even in other stellar systems, but, first, they are almost all giant planets like Jupiter, and secondly, they are observed not by themselves, but by gravitational influence on their star. However, the cloud Oort literally sends us a lot of evidence of its existence. We are talking about comets, which with constant frequency come to the solar system, being envoys of this sphere. Perhaps the most famous example is Halley's comet. The Oort cloud was named after the Dutch astrophysicist, who predicted his discovery in the middle of the 20th century, based on the observation of long-period comets. This sphere, as well as the Kuiper belt, consists of trans-Neptunian objects, which in turn consist mainly of ice, as well as methane, carbon monoxide, cyanide, ethane and other substances. It is very likely that stone objects can rotate there.

Origin of the sphere

Modern astrophysicists believe that the Kuiper belt, the Oort cloud - this is what was left of the substances that formed the solar system, but not part of any planet. About five billion years ago, most of the matter of the first-generation exploded star (that is, formed relatively soon after the Big Bang) due to gravity and millions of years of condensation has transformed into a new star - the Sun. A small part of this protoplanetary rotating disk gathered into huge blocks and formed the planets of our system. The rest of the dust and small objects of the nebula were thrown to the very edge of the solar system, forming the Kuiper belt and the very far sphere of the Oort cloud.