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Oort cloud
(redirected from Inner Oort cloud)

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Oort cloud

Spherical cloud of comets beyond Pluto, extending out to about 100,000 astronomical units (approximately 1.6 light years) from the Sun. The gravitational effect of passing stars and the rest of our Galaxy disturbs comets from the cloud so that they fall in towards the Sun on highly elongated orbits, becoming visible from Earth. As many as 10 trillion comets may reside in the Oort cloud, named after Dutch astronomer Jan Oort who postulated its existence in 1950.



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? Mentioned in ? References in periodicals archive
 
Some planetary scientists call this proposed assemblage the inner Oort cloud.
Solar system record breaker by Cowen, R. / Science News
To resolve the contradiction, theorists in 1981 added another wrinkle to the Oort theory: an inner Oort cloud within the larger sphere, 10,000 to 20,000 AU from the sun, that would act as a reservoir, slowly feeding new comets into the main, outer cloud.
Frozen relics of the early solar system: astronomers search for ... by Cowen, Ron / Science News
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