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Re:Aliens Might Have Sent Cigar-Shaped Probe to Monitor Eart... by JoeAltmaier on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @06:31PM (#18403238)
They're supposed to originate in the Oort cloud. And our star system currently seems to be the only one with an Oort cloud, which seems singularly unlikely. I imagine once we figure out why we can't see any other star's cloud, we'll relax the assertion that all comets are solar-local
Re:Aliens Might Have Sent Cigar-Shaped Probe to Monitor Eart... by dragonwriter on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @06:43PM (#18403287)
> They're supposed to originate in the Oort cloud.

Long-period comets are thought to originate in the Oort cloud, short-period comets in the scattered disc or the Kuiper belt, and main-belt comets in the asteroid belt.

> They're supposed to originate in the Oort cloud.

AFAIK, our Oort cloud hasn't been observed, only hypothesized from the behavior of long-period comets.

Given that, it's kind of unsurprising we wouldn't have concrete evidence of extra-solar Oort clouds.

Re:Aliens Might Have Sent Cigar-Shaped Probe to Monitor Eart... by JoeAltmaier on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @06:44PM (#18403290)
I wonder if we could see comets transiting other stars, and make the same kind of inferences...