SETI again

actually they have taken photographs of objects in the ort cloud,
barely a dot on the film, that is suppose to be about the size of a
locomotive engine.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Douglas May wrote:
>
> On Jul 28, 2006, at 9:08 AM, Robert wrote:
>
> > im not sure where you got the idea that the oort cloud spread out
> > that far into interstellar space. when i was reading about the
object
> > they are calling the 10th planet, it was discussing the fact that
> > that was very near the point where solar gravity would no longer
keep
> > the planets in orbit. there was some discussion on wheither or
not it
> > was really a rogue object that happen to be passing though the
fringe
> > of our solar system. orbits around the sun dont extend as far as
one
> > light year, let alone two.
>
> There have been several planetoids called the 10th planet, most in
> the Kuiper belt. Sometimes called TNO's (Trans-Neptune objects).
The
> Kuiper belt starts around 30 AU's out (just past Neptune) and
drops
> off pretty quickly at around 50 AU's (around 5 billion miles). The
> Oort cloud doesn't begin until 50,000 AU's (5 Trillion miles). We
> don't know where the Oort cloud ends. Probably different distances
in
> different directions thanks to new data from the Voyagers (yes,
> they're still working hard out there). The Kuiper belt is a ring,
> while the Oort cloud is a shell, completely surrounding the Sun.
The
> nearly 5 trillion miles of space in between is sometimes called an
> "outer Kuiper belt" or an "inner Oort cloud". No Oort cloud object
> has actually been seen at the Oort cloud distance. Its existence
is
> calculated by many different means. The small-moon sized object
Sedna
> is considered an Oort Cloud object even though it is in the empty
> zone less than 1000 AU's out.
>
> We don't know how many objects exist in this empty zone between
the
> Kuiper belt and Oort cloud, its simply too dark to see with a
> telescope. Sedna could be an oddball planetoid adrift in the trans-
> kuiper desert, or there could be many other objects floating
around
> out there waiting for us. Voyager is probably not sophisticated
> enough to answer that, but within 50 years, we may know.
>
> We have no visual sighting of any planetoid beyond 1000 AU's. The
> Oort cloud goes out to at least 100,000 AU's, if not more, and
Alpha
> Centauri is just under 300,000 AU's away.
>
> For those who don't know, 1 AU is the distance from the Earth to
the
> sun, about 93 million miles. The voyagers are still less than 100
AU