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I don't think anyone's suggesting that only Sol has an Oort cloud, but the Oort is a (very extended) part of the Solar system, orbiting the Sun like the rest of
by mrec 12y ago
I don't think anyone's suggesting that only Sol has an Oort cloud, but the Oort is a (very extended) part of the Solar system, orbiting the Sun like the rest of us, not something spread evenly throughout the galaxy. Stars don't all have the same sort of planets; it'd be surprising if they all had the same sort of Oort.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoOort objects are ill-behaved (erratic orbits). Inevitably some would wander off. Neighboring stars would have at least some Oort objects? Or we need to imagine a mechanism that prevents this.
- mrec 12y agoAgain, I think we're in violent agreement. The question wasn't whether they're likely to have some, it was more about how many and how far out, and more specifically whether it's likely to be feasible to hop from our Oort to e.g. Centauri's without having to traverse a huge void in between.