posted on Apr, 2 2013 @ 10:10 AM
Originally posted by rickymouse
reply to post by eriktheawful
Well, maybe I have the wrong name for the cloud I am talking about. There is another sort of cloud we are in in the milky way.
The Oort cloud is hypothetical, it isn't even a theory yet. Sounds as if not enough evidence is reven there to prove it's existence
edit on 2-4-2013 by rickymouse because: (no reason given)
You're thinking of interstellar clouds, like the one our solar system is entering that are part of the structure of our galaxy.
We don't really orbit them (nor they us). We go through or near them. They are so large that they are measured in light years.
While their total mass can be great, you also have to consider how that mass is distributed.
Let's use your propane bottle as an example. All that propane is contained in a small area, making it under pressure of course, but that mass is
concentrated in a small area.
If we took all that gas in the bottle and allowed it to expand (say a very large balloon), it would still have the same mass, but it's now
distributed over a large area.
In many ways this is like the sun. All that hydrogen gas it's made of is concentrated into a ball 880,000 miles wide. Because all that mass of
hydrogen is concentrated into a small area, our planet can orbit it. However, if you were to take all that hydrogen, and expanded it out to several
light years, we'd no longer would orbit it, because though it's entire mass has not changed, it's no longer concentrated in to a small area that we