Introduction and Monthly Reminders
August started off hot, unbearably hot for this astronomer. Thankfully, by about mid-month, Utah experienced some rain storms, which brought down the temperatures and cleared out the smoke and inversion for a few days. This allowed me to view the Perseids on the peak date from my backyard. I wasn't able to stay out all night due to having to work the next day, but I was able to view several meteors before heading inside. Perhaps even more spectacular than the Perseids, I witnessed the northern lights for a second time this year! This occurred on the same evening as the Perseids. On this same day, I was also able to capture a couple of images of the sun during its maximum solar activity. See the three photos below.
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| Northern Lights from my backyard on 11 August 2024. |
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| Sunspots from an active Sun on 11 August 2024. |
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| Large sunspot region from an active Sun on 11 August 2024. |
The remainder of August does not include any major events other than close approaches between the Moon and planets. However, there may be a chance to see some leftover meteors from the Perseids and another chance to see the Northern Lights over Utah. The deep sky wonders of the universe are also there to enjoy during the last of the warm summer nights.
The Oort Cloud
The Oort Cloud is the furthest known region of our solar system. It was first predicted in the 1950s by a Dutch astronomer, Jan Oort, hence its name. Not much is known about this region of the solar system, but several theories make up what scientists consider to be reality.
It is estimated that the inner edge of the Oort Cloud is approximately 2000 to 5000 AU from the Sun. For reference, the Earth is 1 AU away from the Sun, and the Kuiper Belt, which was discussed last month, is between 30 and 55 AU from the Sun. It has been theorized that the Oort Cloud may extend out to 100,000 AU away from the Sun, placing it about halfway to our nearest neighboring star.
The Oort Cloud is thought to be home to most of the long-period comets that have been seen to orbit the Sun. Long-period comets have orbits that take a couple of hundred years to hundreds of thousand years to complete one trip around the Sun. Long-period comets include Hale-Bopp from the 1990s and Siding Spring from 2014.
The Oort Cloud is thought to be a giant closed sphere of icy objects that encompass the Sun and all of the planets. It has been estimated that there are over a trillion objects in the Oort Cloud, ranging in size from pebbles to Mount Everest or even larger. Currently, all of this information about the Oort Cloud is theoretical. Future missions, which will take years to plan, organize, and execute, will be required to establish the facts about this region of our solar system.
Check back soon for my next post!
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| Now get outside and look up! |
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