Oort cloud
1
9.9
- noun
- /ɔrt klaʊd/
- Specialized
:
nube de Oort
- In the outer solar system, the Oort cloud of comets is thought to be isotropic.
- Oort cloud comets
- objects in the Oort cloud
- the distant Oort cloud
Examples
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Scientists study the Oort cloud to understand the origins of long-period comets in our solar system.
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You mean it has already entered the Oort cloud?
Blog text (34) -
There are a trillion objects in the Oort cloud.
Fiction book (2002) -
Yes, but what I want to know is this: the Oort cloud is around the solar system, so this brown star, once it has passed through...
Blog text (34) -
The Oort cloud is located on the outer perimeter orbital plane at an average distance of approximately 510,000,000,000 miles.
Blog text (34) -
The Oort cloud is a vast region beyond Pluto that is believed to contain many icy objects.
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Comets originating from the Oort cloud often take thousands of years to complete their orbits around the sun.
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a scientific eponym: 'Oort' is a proper name that conveys no lexical meaning to a B1 learner, and 'cloud' only suggests a diffuse collection. The specific technical sense—a vast, distant spherical shell of icy bodies named after a scientist—is not derivable from the constituents, so the term is opaque without prior exposure.
Etymology
The name Oort cloud comes from scientist Jan Oort, who imagined a huge, distant cloud of icy rocks around the Sun that sometimes send comets into the inner solar system. That's why we call that area the Oort cloud and why comets are said to 'come from' there.