3 ms·
You're right, "presumably" was much too strong a word. "Potentially", maybe.
by mrec 12y ago
You're right, "presumably" was much too strong a word. "Potentially", maybe.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoWe assume gravity, the speed of light etc are the same everywhere. What reason have we to suppose our own stellar neighborhood is the only one to have an Oort cloud? If we assume physics is the same everywhere, then this cloud would extend throughout the galaxy.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoThe Oort cloud in fact extends far enough from Sol that some objects in it could be affected by nearby stars - that is, the stars could be sharing/trading Oort objects. In fact, they must be, because gravity. So to deny that our nearest neighbor has Oort objects, we'd have to invent some mechanism that prevented it.
- mrec 12y agoI don't think anyone's suggesting that only Sol has an Oort cloud, but the Oort is a (very extended) part of the Solar system, orbiting the Sun like the rest of us, not something spread evenly throughout the galaxy. Stars don't all have the same sort of planets; it'd be surprising if they all had the same sort of Oort.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoOort objects are ill-behaved (erratic orbits). Inevitably some would wander off. Neighboring stars would have at least some Oort objects? Or we need to imagine a mechanism that prevents this.
- mrec 12y agoAgain, I think we're in violent agreement. The question wasn't whether they're likely to have some, it was more about how many and how far out, and more specifically whether it's likely to be feasible to hop from our Oort to e.g. Centauri's without having to traverse a huge void in between.