{"id":7301,"date":"2016-04-01T02:42:56","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T09:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=7301"},"modified":"2016-04-08T16:27:13","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T23:27:13","slug":"invisible-oort-cloud-coming-to-kill-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2016\/04\/01\/invisible-oort-cloud-coming-to-kill-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Invisible Oort Cloud Coming To Kill Us All"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2080988-the-oort-cloud-surrounds-our-solar-system-why-cant-we-see-it\/\" target=\"_blank\">from New Scientist<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<h1>The Oort cloud surrounds our solar system \u2013 why can\u2019t we see it?<\/h1>\n<p><em>It\u2019s a giant sphere of a trillion rocks encircling us that occasionally sends comets slinging our way. That\u2019s a convincing story \u2013 but we\u2019d love some direct evidence<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-size wp-image-2080521\" src=\"https:\/\/d1o50x50snmhul.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/42-42755444-1200x800.jpg\" alt=\"Oort cloud\" width=\"480\" \/><em>Oort cloud: out of the darkness Credit: Jon Lomberg\/SPL<\/em><\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll find it in every astronomy textbook: the spherical cloud of a trillion lumps of rock and ice that forms the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg22229630-600-where-am-i-voyager-on-the-solar-systems-frontier\/\" target=\"_blank\">outermost boundary of our solar system<\/a>. The Oort cloud\u2019s distant edge could lie some 100,000 times further out from the sun than Earth, more than a third of the way to its nearest stellar neighbour, Proxima Centauri.<\/p>\n<p>Out there, the gravitational pull of other stars and even of the Milky Way itself outweighs that of the sun. These influences can sometimes knock an Oort cloud object off course and in our direction, becoming what we know as a comet. Indeed, the need for a source for \u201clong period\u201d comets\u00a0\u2013 bodies that pass us less than once every 200 years\u00a0\u2013 is the only evidence we have for the Oort cloud\u2019s existence, and that is circumstantial to say the least.<\/p>\n<p>[ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2080988-the-oort-cloud-surrounds-our-solar-system-why-cant-we-see-it\/\" target=\"_blank\">click to continue reading at New Scientist<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from New Scientist The Oort cloud surrounds our solar system \u2013 why can\u2019t we see it? It\u2019s a giant sphere of a trillion rocks encircling us that occasionally sends comets slinging our way. That\u2019s a convincing story \u2013 but we\u2019d love some direct evidence Oort cloud: out of the darkness Credit: Jon Lomberg\/SPL You\u2019ll find [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weirdness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}