In 1932, Estonian astronomer Ernest J. Öpik put forth the notion of a remote reservoir of comets, arguing that the relatively rapid burning out of comets passing through the inner solar system necessitated a constant source of "fresh" comets to replenish the comet supply.
The discovery of the Oort cloud took place in 1950, when Dutch astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort identified it not through direct telescopic observations but rather via a theoretical analysis of long-period comets—those with orbital periods surpassing 200 years. These long-period comets can follow various orbits, including eccentric ellipses, parabolas, and even modest hyperbolas.
Professor Oort, widely recognized as one of the most eminent astronomers of the 20th century, excelled both as an observer and a theorist. He proposed the existence of a vast cloud comprising possibly 100 million comets surrounding our Solar System. Through his study of long-period comet orbits, Oort observed that many of them seemed to originate from a region much farther out than the orbit of Pluto.
Recently, astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein made a captivating discovery of a celestial object named 2014 UN271. This object orbits the Sun and extends into the Oort cloud. Their finding emerged from a study of archival images collected during the Dark Energy Survey conducted between 2014 and 2018.
Oort Cloud Discovery
