Comet C/2025 K1 ATLAS, an Oort Cloud object found by ATLAS in May, skimmed past the Sun on October 8 at 31 million miles.

The Oort cloud is a region in our solar system's vicinity we don’t know all that much about. Named after Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, it is a theoretical concept comprising planetesimals (solid objects ...

The human mind may find it difficult to conceptualize: a cosmic cloud so colossal it surrounds the Sun and eight planets as it extends trillions of miles into deep space. The spherical shell known as ...

Comet spotter: the object was first observed in data taken by the Dark Energy Camera in Chile, which was used for the Dark Energy Survey. (Courtesy: Reidar Hahn/Fermilab) Astronomers sifting through ...

Imagine stumbling upon a time capsule that has travelled for billions of years, untouched by the chaos of our own solar ...

An object of unusual size will make its closest approach to the Sun in 2031, during which time it will swing past the orbit of Saturn and possibly turn into an exceptionally large comet. Astronomers ...

Here, we show that the detection of Borisov implies that interstellar objects outnumber Solar system objects in the Oort cloud, whereas the reverse is true near the Sun due to the stronger ...

The human mind may find it difficult to conceptualize a cosmic cloud so colossal it surrounds the Sun and eight planets as it extends trillions of miles into deep space. The spherical shell known as ...

‘Oumuamua, the first interstellar object discovered near the Earth, left us with more questions than answers. The visitor was first observed during its exit from the solar system, and the limited data ...

Inner Oort Cloud objects have perihelia beyond the Kuiper Belt with semi-major axes less than a few thousand au. They are beyond the strong gravitational influences of the known planets yet are ...

The Oort cloud, postulated in 1950 by the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, defines the periphery of the solar system—extending out beyond 100,000 times the Earth-sun separation. It contains billions of icy ...

Planet-hunters scouring the heavens have found thousands of distant worlds around other stars, but astronomers may have overlooked one lurking much closer to home. Scientists searching for glimmers of ...