Does the Oort Cloud orbit the Sun and does it have moons?

Question

I can't find any information on this! Please help!

Answer 1

The Oort cloud is nothing like what I suspect you are thinking. It is not like a puffy cloud you would see in the sky that moves around the Sun, sometimes being on one side of the Sun and sometimes on the other. It is the collection of billions of comets, all in different orbits that spend most of their time far from the Sun. I mean REALLY far, like a light year away. And it completely surrounds the solar system. It is more like a thick shell completely enclosing the solar system. And it is not really a cloud so much as it is a swarm. It is really a swarm of billions of comets completely surrounding the Sun in all directions and much farther away that Pluto. If you flew out there, you wouldn't see a cloud. You would just see a comet. And then another. And another. They would be far enough apart that you couldn't see more than one at a time, because space is so big, but if you kept watch and counted them you might notice that there must be quite a few, even though you couldn't see them all at the same time, or really see them all ever, since you couldn't visit all places closely enough in such a large space in one lifetime.

So the Oort cloud is really a swarm completely surrounding the Sun. And not even a dense swarm.

Answer 2

Yes, the Oort Cloud orbits the sun in all directions and extends almost one quarter of the way to the nearest star (about 1 light year). A moon is any smaller body orbiting a larger body. Some asteroids have smaller moons and the Kuiper Belt, where Pluto is, has objects with moons so it is reasonable to suppose that some of the Oort Cloud objects also have moons.

Answer 3

This is a cloud of debris in orbit about the sun, very far away. Remember, everything has to be in orbit or gravity would pull it in. That means, everything has to have the correct orbital velocity for its distance. So if there is a collision between objects way out there and one slows down, it will fall in. This could be where comets come from.
We would hypothesize that some objects in the Oort cloud could be the size of Pluto and Pluto has a moon. So there is no real reason why some Oort cloud objects couldn't have small moons.