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by forktheif 4581 days ago
Huh, looking at that Orrery, I realise my mental map of the solar system was a little off.

I always though comets like Haley's went much further out on their trip away from the sun, but that shows it doesn't even reach past Pluto.

And the orbits of Mercury and Mars are a lot less circular than I thought.

1 comments

The Oort cloud/Kuiper-belt area goes way further than Pluto, but the comets that have orbits from out there into the solar system are too long-period to get fancey names like Halley's. Think about it - Halley's comet comes by every 76 years. That's insanely short for a Kuiperoid.