From: g_d_pusch_remove_underscores@xnet.com
"moogle33" writes:
> Is it possible to measure the average mass and density of the Oort cloud? I
> would imagine that the mass would probably be the equivalent to a large
> planet this alone would not make up enough mass to count for all the dark
> matter.
The total mass of the Oort cloud is indeed small compared even to a large
planet,
let alone a small star, and could not possibly account for the "Dark Matter,"
which exceeds the amount of "ordinary" matter by nearly ten to one.
Furthermore, there are very strong reasons to believe that _whatever_ the
"Dark Matter" is, one thing it _CANNOT_ possibly be is any form of "normal"
matter, because that much "normal" matter would screw up the observed
abundances of the lightest chemical elements and isotopes that were created
during the Big Bang, such as helium, lithium, and deuterium.
> If our sun has a belt of asteroids that where ejected when our star ignited
That is =NOT= how the asteroids were formed! The asteroids are leftovers
from the protoplanetary disk that were prevented from coalescing into
larger objects because the giant planet Jupiter's gravitation perturbed
their orbits so badly that most of the matter in that region was ejected
before it could collide and merge into a protoplanet.
> it is possible that every star has a belt of asteroids.
Highly unlikely, since it requires that a supergiant planet be in a nearly
circular orbit at roughly the right distance from its star. We now know
that, while many star systems contain supergiant planets as large or even
much larger than Jupiter, most of them are in highly eccentric orbits
that would hopelessly perturb the orbits of any asteroid belt, ejecting
most small objects from the star system.
> I know one example is bad statistics but this made me think that maybe we
> are not seeing all the light from the stars because a belt of asteroids
> would be absorbing the light from the star so maybe every star is infact
> larger than we think.
I'm sorry, but space is very, VERY, =VERY= big, and asteroids are
microscopiclly small compared to stars; they simply could =NOT=
"obscure" a significant amount of starlight!
Asteroid belts are =NOT= like the teeming bee-swarms of tumbling rocks
you see in bad SF movies and TV shows: Even if you were sitting in the
middle of the _densest_ part of the asteroid belt, you would need a
_VERY_ good telescope to resolve asteroids as anything but dim,
far-away pinpoints of light.
Furthermore, if you _really_ wanted to "obscure" the light of a star,
you would =NOT= use "asteroids" --- you would use dust. And you would not
want it in a "belt," which would only obscure light if the narrow plane
of the belt happened to accidentally also be aligned with your line of
sight to the star (which would be highly unlikely): You would want the dust
to be dispered fairly uniformly througout all of space.
However, I assure you that the problem is =NOT= merely that some of the
starlight is "obscured" by something. The amount of mass out there
is _TEN TIMES LARGER_ than what can be accounted for in stars and gas.
Furthermore, we have independent methods of measuring the masses of stars,
particularly the ones that have planets. Finally, as I mentioned earlier,
whatever that mass out there is, I can't be "normal" matter, because
that much "normal" matter would screw up the observed abundances of the
lightest chemical elements and isotopes created during the Big Bang.
-- Gordon D. Pusch
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