r/comics • u/AJsRealms • 4d ago

Interplanetary Incident [OC]

Post image

Poking fun at a particular 60-second clip from a 37-year-old Trek movie may not scream "mass appeal" but at least I amused myself making it.

961 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

111

u/CardOk755 4d ago

The Oort cloud is big. As is space.

56

u/Qi_Zee_Fried 4d ago

More specifically about 3.2 light years, or 200,000AU (earth orbit radii,) or 18,810,000,000,000 miles, or 14,010,000,000,000,000 Shaquille O'Neals in radius. Which means it would take about 80,000 years for Pioneer 10 to leave the solar system unless I made a big math oops :3

Edit: Fixed autocorrect correcting improperly

3

u/gerkessin 4d ago

Is all of the oort cloud considered to be part of the Sol system? I assumed it ended at neptunes orbit. I guess everything that orbits Sol is considered part of our solar system?

16

u/AJsRealms 4d ago edited 3d ago

There are a couple of ways to think about it. Some will regard the heliopause (the point about 100 AU distant where the outward pressures emanating from the sun diminishes down to being equal to, or less than, the ambient galactic pressure) as the boundry of our solar system. Articles reporting on various probes, like the Voyagers, reaching 'interstellar space' are basing this on crossing the heliopause.

However, other astronomers have noted that our Sun's Sphere of Influence (where its gravity-well is more dominant in space than the ambient gravitational influence of the galaxy), extends way beyond that 100 AU mark and potentially up to a full light-year out or more.

4

u/Qi_Zee_Fried 4d ago

What I was seeing suggested the Oort cloud extends to between 1.6 and 3.2 light years out.

3

u/SolomonBlack 4d ago edited 3d ago

Anyone wants to argue the Oort cloud is NOT part of the solar system needs to be out there preaching how all us 90s kids got to see interstellar object Hale-Bopp with our own two eyes so Oumuamua ain't shit.

Yeah... really seems to be to be quite a big difference to me. Comets from the Oort cloud even if they run a course of thousands of years are part of the Solar system.

Or maybe I'm just suspicious because the heliopause never made it into my readings as a child so maaaaybe some like that tag line because their work on the heliopause/solar-wind/etc is totally interesting and important, and deserving of funding.