Difference between revisions of "Oort Cloud"
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A spherical shell around most stars, containing numerous small bodies of cometary material. A typical Oort cloud is about 0.5 to 1 light year from its primary and has an aggregate mass about that of Earth; density is thus extremely low. The main constituents of cometary bodies are ice and dust ("dirty snowballs"). Bodies in the Oort cloud are occasionally perturbed by collisions or by the influence of nearby stars into orbits which pass near the star; these form the visible comets. The Oort cloud is named after its discoverer, Terran astronomer Jan Oort. | A spherical shell around most stars, containing numerous small bodies of cometary material. A typical Oort cloud is about 0.5 to 1 light year from its primary and has an aggregate mass about that of Earth; density is thus extremely low. The main constituents of cometary bodies are ice and dust ("dirty snowballs"). Bodies in the Oort cloud are occasionally perturbed by collisions or by the influence of nearby stars into orbits which pass near the star; these form the visible comets. The Oort cloud is named after its discoverer, Terran astronomer Jan Oort. | ||
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Revision as of 09:54, 18 March 2007
A spherical shell around most stars, containing numerous small bodies of cometary material. A typical Oort cloud is about 0.5 to 1 light year from its primary and has an aggregate mass about that of Earth; density is thus extremely low. The main constituents of cometary bodies are ice and dust ("dirty snowballs"). Bodies in the Oort cloud are occasionally perturbed by collisions or by the influence of nearby stars into orbits which pass near the star; these form the visible comets. The Oort cloud is named after its discoverer, Terran astronomer Jan Oort.
This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.