What lies at the edge of the Solar System? Far beyond the orbit of Neptune and the Kuiper Belt, deep into interstellar space, we find a vast, thick shell of icy space debris. We have never seen it directly, but we know it exists- because it is the source of the most distant comets that we see entering the Solar System. So why is it there? Today we'll find out, in a new episode of #OOTW

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MUSIC:

All music in this video was downloaded from the YouTube Audio Library.

- The Six Realms | I Think I Can Help You

- Those Things Are More Fun With Other People | pATCHES

- Tides | Windows of Ken

- An Excuse To Do Less | pATCHES

- The Three Elements | I Think I Can Help You

- Clouded | Public Memory

- Ammil | The Tides

- Dusk | DivKid

- Growing Space | Astron

- Interplanetary Alignment | NoMBe

FOOTAGE:

The scenes in this video were captured using SpaceEngine Pro, a virtual universe simulator:

http://spaceengine.org/

Get SpaceEngine on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/314650/SpaceEngine/

Some scenes were captured using Universe Sandbox

Oort Cloud Simulation: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1557659633

Universe Sandbox: http://universesandbox.com/

Other Videos:

- Voyager-1 Launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LoWEncvTLQ&t

- Oort Cloud Shell Image (Creative Commons): https://www.rocketstem.org/2020/01/11/ice-and-stone-special-topic-03/

- Timelapse of Comet Lovejoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D2tdjiE9PQ

- NASA Planetary Disc Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNOb3xrjOhE

- Estuary Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrYQFdukGMg

- How Big is the Milky Way Graphic | NASA (Creative Commons): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX3PIkbTQwQ

- Observatory Footage from ESA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwDJIT8Ucpo

SOURCES OF INFORMATION:

- Oort Cloud In Depth [NASA]: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/oort-cloud/in-depth/

- Oort Cloud Contents and Structure: https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512256

- Oort Cloud Facts: https://space-facts.com/oort-cloud/

- Kuiper Belt: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/overview/

- Sedna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90377_Sedna

- Siding Spring: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2013_A1_(Siding_Spring)

- Hale Bopp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Hale%E2%80%93Bopp

- Lovejoy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2011_W3_(Lovejoy)

- TAU Spacecraft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAU_(spacecraft)

- Whipple Mission: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015DPS....4731207A/abstract

- Extrasolar Oort Clouds: https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2012/08/interstellar-comets

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Introduction

2:01 The Oort Cloud

5:18 The Scale of the Cloud

6:47 Formation of the Oort Cloud

9:33 The Source of All Comets

13:17 The Hills Cloud

14:40 Sedna

16:12 The Outer Oort Cloud

17:13 Siding Spring, Hale Bopp, Lovejoy

19:20 Future Missions to the Oort Cloud

21:46 Extra-solar Oort Clouds