the far reaches of the solar neighborhood that, according to some models, periodically disturbs the icy reservoirs of the Oort Cloud, sending swarms of comets hurtling toward the inner solar system. The Oort Cloud, a vast, spherical shell of frozen...

unlike asteroids, are icy bodies that originate from distant regions in the solar system, such as the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud. Composed of ice, dust, and rocky material, comets are often likened to “dirty snowballs.” When a comet approaches the...