A recent study published February 16 suggests that the Oort cloud, a shell of icy objects at the edge of our solar system, has a spiral structure similar to a galaxy. The research used data from comets and gravitational forces to model the Oort cloud’s shape, which was previously unknown.
The Oort cloud is thought to have formed from remnants of the giant planets, including Jupiter and Neptune, 4.6 billion years ago. It stretches from about 5,000 astronomical units (AU) from the sun to 100,000 AU away, a distance that would take NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft over 300 years to reach.
The cloud is home to dwarf planet remnants and is so distant that it will take the Voyager 1 spacecraft over 300,000 years to exit. Scientists are trying to better understand the Oort cloud’s makeup and origins, as this knowledge could provide insights into the history of our solar system’s formation.
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/oort-cloud-resembles-galaxy-study-024141382.html