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The Oort cloud (/ ɔːr t, ʊər t /), [1] sometimes called the Öpik–Oort cloud, [2] is theorized to be a vast cloud of icy planetesimals surrounding the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 AU (0.03 to 3.2 light-years). [3] [note 1] [4] The concept of such a cloud was proposed in 1950 by the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, in whose ...
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The Oort cloud is thought to be composed of comets that were ejected from the inner Solar System by gravitational interactions with the outer planets. Oort cloud objects move very slowly, and can be perturbed by infrequent events, such as collisions, the gravitational effects of a passing star, or the galactic tide , the tidal force exerted by ...
Positions of the main asteroid belt, Kuiper belt, and the Oort cloud in the Solar System. The current definition was included in the 2006 IAU resolution that defined the term planet, demoting the status of Pluto to that of dwarf planet.
The asteroid and comet belts orbit the Sun from the inner rocky planets into outer parts of the Solar System, interstellar space. [16] [17] [18] An astronomical unit, or AU, is the distance from Earth to the Sun, which is approximately 150 billion meters (93 million miles). [19]
The Oort cloud (artist's rendering pictured) is a hypothesized spherical cloud of comets that may lie nearly a light-year from the Sun. It is thought to comprise two separate regions: a spherical outer Oort cloud and a disc-shaped inner Oort cloud, or Hills cloud; the outer extent of the cloud defines the boundary of the Solar System.
The most obvious reasons people think stagnate the birth rates are that people just don't want to have kids anymore or postpone it to later in life. ... of icy objects called the Oort Cloud ...
A third reservoir of trans-Neptunian objects, the Oort cloud, has been hypothesized, although no confirmed direct observations of the Oort cloud have been made. [2] Some researchers further suggest a transitional space between the scattered disc and the inner Oort cloud, populated with "detached objects". [17]