The Oort cloud is traditionally thought of as a vast shell of perhaps trillions of icy objects encasing our solar system, the final boundary between us and the reaches of interstellar space. But it's not a homogenous mass.

The Oort cloud is a shell of icy objects that forms the very outskirts of our Solar System. Recently, a group of researchers discovered that the inner portion of the Oort cloud likely has spiral arms that make it look like a galaxy.

Learn about the Oort cloud, a vast area beyond the inner solar system that is believed to contain icy objects arranged in a spiral shape.

The inner Oort cloud, between 1,000 and 10,000 AU from the sun, displays a spiral formation with arms that extend 15,000 AU.

NASA’s Pleiades model suggests a spiral in the Oort Cloud’s inner regio Galactic forces may have shaped the Oort Cloud into a unique structure Observations needed to confirm this unexpected discovery