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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Onufrienko, Yuri Ivanovich
Onychophora
onyx
oocyte
oolite
Oolitic
Oologah

Oort cloud
Oort, Jan Hendrik
oosphere
Oost-Vlaanderen
Oostende
Oosting, Henry J(ohn)
ooze
op art

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