LMR-119 · Planets
Oort Cloud
The solar system is a thousand times bigger than you think.
§ A first look
§ Depths
Six ways into the same idea — from bedtime story to chalkboard. No order required.
L1 · Crayon
Told like a bedtime story.
For a curious 10-year-old. No jargon. Just a picture in your head.
Far past Neptune, past Pluto, past the Kuiper Belt of icy bodies, there is an absolutely enormous spherical cloud of icy chunks lazily orbiting the Sun. It is so far out that from there the Sun would look like just another star. Once in a great while one of those chunks gets nudged — by a passing star, or galactic tides — and falls inward toward us. When that happens, we call it a comet. The 'edge' of the solar system, in any honest sense, is way, way further out than your kid's solar system poster suggests.
§ Strange but true
- 01The universe is stranger than your intuition. This is a rule, not an exception.
- 02Every fact in physics was once an outrageous guess. Most still feel like one.
- 03If it doesn't bend your brain a little, you haven't read it carefully enough.
§ From the field journal
Oort Cloud
"The solar system is a thousand times bigger than you think."
— observed, sketched, not yet fully understood.
§ Nearby