AST 309 Chapter Notes - Chapter 11: 51 Pegasi, Gas Giant, Orion Nebula
Document Summary
Simulations suggest that the sun may have captured many comets from the primordial star forming soup. Comets spend most of their time 5000-100000 times further from the sun than the earth, in the oort cloud. One model predicts that around 6 billion comets in the oort cloud are home grown. 400 billion comets probably surround the solar system, which is hard to explain. These mystery comets may have formed around other stars during the first moments of star formation. Sun may have been massive enough to steal comets from lightweight neighbors. A computer model built where many stars form near one another and each spawns its own planetary objects. Many assumptions had to be made about solar system formation, which introduces large uncertainties into the picture. Like the assumption that a large scattered disk would exist that early on. Had to assume the stars had the same number of comets, "death stars" in orion blast planets before they form.
