Have we seen the oort cloud or is it just theoretical? How long would it take for for example Voyager to get there?

Question

underhill · Answer

The oort cloud is mostly theoretical. It is presumably the source of long-period comets in our solar system. The oort cloud theory was developed to explain the existence of long-period comets in our solar system. Comets can only last thousands of years, not millions or billions, so in order for the universe to be billions of years old, there must be a source of comets. The Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud were hypothesized to explain this. The following link provides this information about spacecraft and distances: "While no spacecraft has yet traveled to the Kuiper Belt, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at Pluto in 2015. The New Horizons mission team hopes to study one or more KBOs after its Pluto mission is complete." http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=KBOs&Display=OverviewLong

asnaseer · Answer

I don't know about the oort cloud, but there is a very nice site that shows just how vast the universe is: http://scaleofuniverse.com/

anonymous · Answer

When was the New Horizons spacecraft launched? asnaseer, that is an awesome website!

asnaseer · Answer

New Horizons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons

asnaseer · Answer

The scale of the universe really make you feel very very very small when you consider just how much there is out there. very awe inspiring.

anonymous · Answer

Extremely eye opening! Really puts things in perspective.