Man’s spirit of adventure and the thirst to understand the universe knows no bounds. No matter how vast, how dark and how mysterious the deep cold space has proven to be, humans have not lost the hope of being an interplanetary and possibly intergalactic species. Despite past failures and disappointments, machines continue to be sent into space, each being better than its predecessor. Among the mysteries that the cold deep space holds, is the Oort cloud.

The curiosity to hold future explorations on the Oort cloud was heightened with the discovery of a planet called Sedna. It was quite a large planet that measured 1,000 kilometers in diameter and believed to have come from the Oort cloud (Siegel, 2018). Many scientists really wanted to know what else the cloud holds.

Figure 1Voyager 1 Spacecraft. Image courtesy of NASA: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Although there have no specific missions assigned to explore the Oort cloud, which is theoretical in nature, there are hopes that the Voyager Interstellar Mission launched in 1977 would be able give mankind some information about the Oort cloud, if indeed it exists. The original mission plan was to explore Jupiter and Saturn the Voyager 1 spacecraft has been able to go past Pluto and into the interstellar space after a 39 years’ service (Rudd, 1997).

REFERENCES

• Rudd, H. S. (1997). The Voyager Interstellar Mission. Acta Austronaut, 383-396.

Siegel, E. (2018, October 28). Is Humanity Ignoring Our First Chance For A Mission To An Oort Cloud Object? Retrieved from Medium: https://medium/com/starts-with-a-bang/is -humanity-ignoring-our-first-chance-for -a-mission-to-an-oort-cloud-object-51205de499b5

Angelina's Note:

Blog (6 out of 6) for my Astronomy Class with Professor Micheal Marks.

Bristol Community College, Fall River MA  Fall/Winter 2018

Major: Graphic Design