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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 (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 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]
If Halley was once a long-period comet, it is likely to have originated in the Oort cloud, [49] a sphere of cometary bodies around 20,000–50,000 au from the Sun. Conversely the Jupiter-family comets are generally believed to originate in the Kuiper belt , [ 49 ] a flat disc of icy debris between 30 au (Neptune's orbit) and 50 au from the Sun ...
Theoretically, from the edge of the solar system in a big cloud called the Oort cloud. The comet hasn't come this close to Earth for 50,000 years, supposedly, because the orbital period is said to ...
The Kuiper belt is distinct from the hypothesized Oort cloud, which is believed to be a thousand times more distant and mostly spherical. The objects within the Kuiper belt, together with the members of the scattered disc and any potential Hills cloud or Oort cloud objects, are collectively referred to as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). [21]
C/2014 UN 271 came from the Oort cloud and has been inside of the orbit of Neptune (29.9 AU) since March 2014 and passed inside the orbit of Uranus (18.3 AU) in September 2022. [k] [16] [40] The time of perihelion has been well-known since June 2021. [6] The current 3-sigma uncertainty in the comet's distance from the Sun is ±35,000 km. [16]