A Planetarium Accidentally Discovered Something in the Oort Cloud

Comments · 76

• AD

  @AdvantestInc · 2 hours ago

  Checking whether the S shape was a display artifact was a great detail to include. That extra step makes the discovery story more interesting.

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• TU

  @TubaDragoness · 2 hours ago

  Some people downplay science communicators because they “aren’t real scientists”, but this is a key example of how they’re still incredibly important to the “ecosystem” of science— no, they may not be giving you a university-grade lecture on the topic, but the responsible ones are still striving for accuracy even when simplifying. By not being cutting-edge experts and by thinking of how to explain a topic to a layperson, they may ask questions that turn out to be incredibly important, but a true expert never would have thought to ask.<br><br>By making the dense stuff more accessible, they also inspire and attract the next generation of scientists by introducing people to the base concepts and pointing them to where and how they can find out more. The most effective teachers are the ones that show you how to love learning.

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• FU

  @fuurinkazan164 · 1 hour ago

  I love it when you have the scientists who were involved or who have specific knowledge about the content are on this channel. Takes amazing content and elevates it even further.

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• TO

  @tommythetoe · 2 hours ago

  So that&apos;s where the Fortress of solitude is.

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• MA

  @marcusrowan7212 · 2 hours ago

  Hey there great video by the way! Thank you for all the hard work you guys put into this. <br><br>I just wanted to ask because I think I caught an error in your video: <br><br>It was my understanding that, despite its supermassive status, the black hole at the center of our galaxy (Sagittarius A*) actually makes up a very small amount of the total mass of the galaxy, not large enough to actually be the center around which everything orbits. <br>And it was actually just the aggregated mass of all the objects in the central bulge that the rest of the Galaxy loosely orbits. <br><br>I could be wrong of course!

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• MA

  @MaxContagion · 1 hour ago

  that&apos;s neat. it&apos;s like we&apos;re just barely touching the next system over. we got our little well of stuff. they got their little well of stuff

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• PA

  @paulkinzer7661 · 1 hour ago

  Wow! Using existing data to find something, plus a supercomputer to verify the finding, of a heretofore unknown structure , all begun to create a well-designed public education production, just blows me away. As a traveling planetarium owner and presenter, this makes me very happy!<br><br>Also, knowing that a star is going to be passing through the solar system in the (relatively) near future would make a great SciShow episode on it own. I&apos;m going -- right now -- to do more research on that.

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• HU

  @hugegamer5988 · 1 hour ago

  Nothing like the enjoyment of a fresh Ruben.

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• EL

  @Electru522 · 2 hours ago (edited)

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7AM3ViYckA&amp;t=280">4:40</a> One minor correction: Sag A* is 4 million times more massive than our sun, but the central bulge of the Milky Way is roughly 20 billion solar masses.<br><br>So, while Sag A* was likely the anchor that helped build the Milky Way (kind of like a snowflake building off of a tiny dust particle), the rest of the galaxy orbits the central bulge. Even Sag A* would be influenced more by the sheer number of stars around it then it would influence those very same stars.<br><br>It&apos;s kind of like how barycenters work. It&apos;s easy to say that the solar system orbits the sun, but in reality, the actual center of mass of our solar system is not the center of the sun. The sun is instead simply the anchor.

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• YO

  @youknowandy-ai · 1 hour ago

  cool to see some new structures in the solar system and to even think about the galactic tides in the first place.

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• TE

  @teddywalker97 · 2 hours ago (edited)

  Makes me wonder if comets are caused by collisions in the Oort cloud that result in large objects with less orbiting momentum that then just tumble down towards the Sun with their remaining inertia. That&apos;s just my little theory though.

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• BO

  @bobthecomputerguy · 59 minutes ago

  Compared to all other measurement units, au is gold!

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