Most Comets Not From This Solar System

Many of the most well known comets, including Halley, Hale-Bopp and, most recently, McNaught, may have been born in orbit around other stars, according to a new theory by an international team of astronomers led by Harold F. Levison, co-investigator on NAI’s NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Team.

The team used computer simulations to show that the Sun may have captured small icy bodies from its sibling stars while it was in its birth star cluster, thereby creating a reservoir for observed comets. Their paper appears in the June 10, 2010 issue of Science Express.

Source: NAI Newsletter