In 1950, astronomer Jan Oort proposed that certain comets come from a vast, extremely distant spherical shell of icy bodies surrounding the solar system. This giant swarm of objects, now named …

Many comets crash into the Sun or the planets. Those that have close encounters with Jupiter tend to be ripped apart or tossed out of the solar system entirely. The other source of comets is the Oort Cloud, …

https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/large-distant-comets-more-common-than-previously-thought those that travel inward from the Oort Cloud -- a group of icy bodies beginning...coming from …

Twelve NASA spacecraft and the International Space Station observed and detected Comet ISON on the final stretch of its multi-million year journey from the Oort Cloud to the solar corona.

The comet-disk lies just beyond Neptune and might stretch 500 times farther from the Sun than Earth. This is 100 times closer to Earth than the hypothesized Oort cloud, commonly thought to be a vast …

Our solar system’s small bodies – asteroids, comets, and meteors – pack big surprises. These chunks of rock, ice, and metal are leftovers from the formation of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago.

It has never been directly observed, but its existence is predicted based on mathematical models and observations of comets that likely originate there. The Oort Cloud is made of icy pieces of space …

Most Oort cloud comets come from a solar "sphere" around 30,000 astronomical units (AU) away, but scientists think the cloud itself extends almost halfway to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, which is …

Halley is often called the most famous comet because it marked the first time astronomers understood comets could be repeat visitors to our night skies. Astronomers have now linked the comet's …

Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets, are rocky remnants left over from the early formation of our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. The current known asteroid count is: . Most of this ancient …