The Oort Cloud is a vast, spherical shell of icy objects that surrounds our entire solar system, extending far beyond the orbits of the planets and dwarf planets. Thought to be the source of long ...

Creating Comets The Oort cloud spans a great distance, from around 2,000 to between 100,000 and 200,000 astronomical units (au). For reference, 1 au is equivalent to nearly 150 million kilometers ...

As these planets began orbiting the sun, their movements kicked the excess material far beyond Pluto's orbit, where they reside today. The Oort cloud's inner edge sits roughly 2,000 to 5,000 ...

The Oort cloud reaches out approximately 1/4th the way to the nearest star. Even identifying objects from the innermost regions is an exciting find all by itself, let alone when they're likely to ...

Scientists had long thought the Oort Cloud was shaped like a sphere or flattened shell, warped by the push and pull of other planets and the Milky Way itself. The planetarium show hinted that a ...

A telescope has discovered a new world on the edge of the Milky Way – potentially confirming the ‘Planet X’ theory. Beyond ...

The solar system consists of eight planets, several dwarf planets, hundreds of moons, and billions of asteroids, comets and ...

Scientists had long thought the Oort Cloud was shaped like a sphere or flattened shell, warped by the push and pull of other planets and the Milky Way itself. The planetarium show hinted that a ...

The work has not yet been peer-reviewed. The Oort cloud was born out of remnants of the solar system's giant planets, Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Saturn, after they formed 4.6 billion years ago.

The Oort Cloud’s residents may be a reason why life ignited on Earth; crashing on our planet eons ago, these ice bodies may have supplied at least some of the water that all life requires. At ...

Though Pluto has formally been considered a dwarf planet for almost two decades, it still has many lessons left for planetary scientists — including hints about how the solar system formed.