The #OortCloud—a shell of debris in the farthest reaches of our #SolarSystem—may consist of more #interstellar objects as compared to local bodies from our own system, as per new research.
It was only two years ago that humans discovered Borisov: the first and only interstellar comet to enter our solar system from a completely foreign star system.
But now, the new study suggests such phenomena might not be too rare!
But if so, why have we only ever seen just one interstellar object so far?
According to study authors, that's simply because we don’t have the technology to see the others yet.
The #OortCloud is unbelievably far—about 321 billion to 16 trillion km away from our Sun! Also, the objects within the Cloud don’t produce their own light.
Combined, these factors make it incredibly difficult to spot the objects in the outer #SolarSystem.
📸: NASA/JPL-Caltech
While we don't have the required technology yet, that will change following the launch of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (slated for 2022) and the Transneptunian Automated Occultation Survey (TAOS II) in late 2021.
The latter is specifically designed to detect faraway comets.
Meanwhile, the presence of interstellar objects in the #OortCloud suggests that there is a lot more debris leftover from the formation of planetary systems.
Therefore, studying such interstellar objects could help us unlock the secrets of how our planetary system formed!
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
While searching for life in the Gulf of Mexico, researchers pulled out a new bizarre-looking species of isopod, whose head resembles the Darth Vader from Star Wars!
This new-found crustacean, named Bathonymus yucatanensis, has 14 legs and is around 26 cm long — approximately 25 times larger than its closest relative, the common woodlouse.
While these blonde creatures seem pretty scary, the "Vanilla Vaders" are, in fact, harmless to humans.
Their huge size is only due to deep-sea gigantism — a phenomenon wherein ocean dwellers grow bigger than their terrestrial relatives due to lack of sunlight.
This super-Earth is a rocky world, on which a year is equal to just 11 Earth days.
The short orbit is down to the red dwarfs being a lot smaller than the Sun that centres our solar system. But the smaller sizes also make their gravitational fields less expansive than the Sun's.
Therefore, Ross 508b revolves around its red dwarf at a distance of just 5 million km. Mercury, in comparison, is about 60 million km from the Sun.
The short distance between this super-Earth & its red dwarf begs the question: how could it possibly be habitable?
#Japan is making grand plans of creating interplanetary #trains and champagne flute-like glass habitats in its bid to send and host humans on the #Moon and #Mars!
An interplanetary transportation system dubbed the 'Hexatrack', which maintains a gravity of 1G during long-distance travel to mitigate the effects of prolonged exposure to low gravity, has been proposed by #Japanese researchers.
The #trains will also possess 'Hexacapsules', which are essentially hexagon-shaped capsules with a moving device in the middle.
In 2012, the almost-complete skeleton of a new kind of #dinosaur was found in the northern Patagonia region of #Argentina.
The dinosaur has been christened #Meraxes gigas. The generic epithet is an ode to a dragon in the #GameOfThrones series.
Standing at the height of 11 m (36 ft) and weighing roughly 4000 kgs, the #dinosaur sported several crests, bumps and horns on its skull, which lent it a menacing appearance.
But the highlight of the findings is that the dinosaur had teeny-tiny arms, just like the #Trex!
Dr Jose, along with an international research team from the US, UK and Australia, will be examining the Galactic Centre Cloud (GCC) — the central molecular zone of our Milky Way — in April 2023.
They have been allotted 27.3 hours over the access period of 12 months.