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Originally posted by Jehosephat
I might have missed this but is the Oort cloud still a theory or did it get changed into something else?
When all these minor planets being found orbiting our solar system I am not finding any referances to it anymore
Use the Google, Luke.
Originally posted by Jehosephat
okay, then what is the Kuiper belt? and how does that differ from the Oort Coloud?
Careful orbital calculations done in 1950 by Jan Oort indicate that a huge spherical "cloud" (now called the Oort Cloud) of perhaps a trillion (1e12) or more comets orbit the Sun far beyond the orbit of Pluto from about 30,000 AU to a light-year or more. This is the source of the long-period comets.
The Kuiper Belt is a disk-shaped region past the orbit of Neptune roughly 30 to 100 AU from the Sun containing many small icy bodies. It is now considered to be the source of the short-period comets.