A recent study has revealed a new problem. [About the Oort cloud]. Evolutionary theories of the origin of the solar system state that comet nuclei came from material left over from the formation of the planets. According to the theory, this icy material was sent out to the Oort cloud in the outer reaches of the solar system by the gravity of the newly formed planets. All of the earlier studies ignored collisions between the comet nuclei during this process. This new study has considered these collisions and has found that most of the comets would have been destroyed by the collisions. Thus, instead of having a combined mass of perhaps 40 Earths, the Oort cloud should have at most the mass of about a single Earth. It is doubtful that this is enough mass to account for the comets that we see. The researchers postulate ‘escape valves’3 that could supply up to 3.5 Earth masses, but this is still ‘low compared to recent estimates of the mass of the Oort cloud’. answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v15/n2/oort
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 18:52:09 +0000