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The Oort Cloud

In January 13th 1950, in his paper ‘The Structure of the Cloud of Comets Surrounding the Solar System and a Hypothesis Concerning its Origin’, Jan Oort suggested that comets come from a common region outside our Solar System (now called the Oort cloud).

Source: Sagan, Carl. Cosmos. New York: Random House, 1980

Jan Oort
Jan Oort, professor astronomy Leiden University, in the Leiden Sterrewacht (May 1961). Poster of the spiral galaxy M81 in the constellation Ursa Major. Hygrometer on the cupboard behind
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!