SPACE WARNING: Death star heading towards Earth will end life with hail of space rocks

[Cripplecreek]

[snip]Swinburn University astrophysicist Alan Duffy told Australia's Herald Sun: "Objects hardly ever meet in space -- the distances are so huge -- but the gravitational influence of a star is enormous, even something a lightyear away can rattle the loosely held Oort Cloud objects. "But there's no doubt that nearby stars in the past have nudged Oort objects into falling towards the inner solar system."[/snip]That's interesting, considering there's zero observational evidence for the existence of the Oort Cloud. :)

Better source: https://phys.org/news/2015-01-rogue-star-hip-collision-solar.html

The Ort cloud is a fairly solid hypothesis but I wonder if it may be a much larger cloud of objects in interstellar space between stars.

[SunkenCiv]

...but I wonder if it may be a much larger cloud of objects in interstellar space between stars.

If it were, it wouldn't be the Oort Clude, er, Cloud.

[Cripplecreek]

If it were, it wouldn't be the Oort Clude, er, Cloud.

No but for now the theory is a completely reasonable one at least suggested by the long term comets. If there is a much larger cloud of interstellar objects, some will become gravitationally bound to the individual stars. Then there is Proxima plowing through it all every half million years.

However its always bothered me that scientists always seem to suggest that comets only come from the ort cloud or are at least bound to the sun. It seems completely reasonable that some could be truly alien and are just passing through.