Star passages through the Oort cloud

✍ Scribed by Paul R. Weissman

• Book ID: 104627412
• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 326 KB
• Volume: 72
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-0794
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00117498

✦ Synopsis

Stars passing through the Oort cloud eject comets to interstellar space and initiate showers of comets into the planetary region. Monte Carlo simulations of such passages are performed on a representative distribution of cometary orbits. Ejected comets generally lie along a narrow tunnel "drilled" by the star through the cloud. However, shower comets come from the entire cloud, and do not give a strong signature of the star's passage, except in the inverse semimajor axis distribution for the shower comets. The planetary system is likely not experiencing a cometary shower at this time.