How many stars in the solar system? In the social networks that have so gained popularity today and other segments of Runet, one can often find a similar question / poll. As a rule, it is accompanied by comments about fellow compatriots who fundamentally do not understand the structure of our space house. Indeed, how many stars in the solar system? What a stupid question? Here's the problem of how many stars in our galaxy, it would be more complicated and quite reasonably posed. But not everything is so simple! Having delved into the heart of the matter,
You can come across absolutely amazing things. It turns out that among modern scientists, the question of how many stars in the solar system is quite seriously posed. And now we are not talking about seekers of popular sensations and pseudoscientific theories about the origin of the world, alien visits or world conspiracies, but rather respectable astrophysicists.
Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud
If not everyone, then certainly the vast majority of ordinary people know the planetary composition of our star system: the planets of the earth group, the gas giant Jupiter, belted by the rings of Saturn, distant Neptune, and so on, separated from the rest by the asteroid belt . A much smaller number of people, if we are not talking about specially interested in this topic, are aware of the deprivation of Pluto planetary status. The fact is that already in the 2000s, bodies were discovered outside its orbit that were not inferior to Pluto in size. For the first time since ancient Greece, astronomers asked the question: "What, in fact, is legitimate to call a planet?"
As a result of the generally accepted consensus and the adoption of a number of criteria, Pluto was designated a dwarf planet, as well as the freshly discovered Eris, Sedna and others. These objects are numerous and constantly open to the gaze of scientists more and more new bodies. They are concentrated two times farther from the Sun than the orbit of Neptune, and are called the Kuiper belt. However, a subsequent study of comets constantly flying into the solar system convinced astronomers that their source was not Kuiper’s belt at all. According to modern concepts, another thousand times farther, approximately at the distance of one light year, is another disk of concentration of solid
celestial bodies. It is his indignation that leads to the periodic invasion of the comets into the inner radius of the solar system, their literal bombardment of planets like Saturn, Mars and the Earth. Presumably, the objects located in
the Oort cloud were once long formed near the Sun, but later scattered deep into space, now spinning in a distant orbit. But what causes the perturbations of these bodies and makes them periodically move back to the Sun?
Nemesis
And here is the question of how many stars in the solar system are acquiring not a mocking, but quite serious character. In the mid-80s, paleontologists Jack Sepkoski and David Raup declared the idea that life on Earth very likely underwent mass extinction with an enviable frequency of 26-30 thousand years. However, the reasons for these extinctions paleontologists could not
install. On the basis of this, theories about the extraterrestrial origin of catastrophes, or rather, meteorite, began to be born. A number of scientists to this day suggest that the Sun may have a double star, which is a dull red dwarf (because no one has noticed it yet) and introduces disturbances into the Oort cloud with the indicated periodicity, which leads to the cosmic bombardment of the Earth and the destruction of all living things . A hypothetical red dwarf was named Nemesis. In fairness, it should be noted that the assumption of a real Nemesis today is weakening more and more. This is facilitated by the lack of success in its search, and the unproven periodic bombardment, and finally, the skepticism about the version of such a constant extinction of living species on Earth. On the other hand, most famous stars just have partners. For example, our closest galactic neighbor is the binary system of Alpha and
Proxima Centauri. And how many stars are years, so much they revolve around a common center of gravity.