Manx comets, like their tail-wagging brethren, come from the Oort cloud.

马恩岛猫彗星，和它们带有慧尾的兄弟一样，来自奥尔特云。

The more reclusive long-period comets among them the recent visitors Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake come from the much more distant Oort cloud, about which more presently.

比较长命的彗星其中有最近光顾的海尔－博普彗星和百武彗星产生于遥远得多的奥尔特云，我们过一会儿就会谈到这个问题。

We know there's none in our solar system, even out in the Oort cloud; it would've been seen by now by one of several different sky surveys.

我们知道太阳系里是没有的，甚至奥尔特云里也没有；它现在应该已经被几种不同的天空观测观测过了。

About all that can be said with confidence about the Oort cloud is that it starts somewhere beyond Pluto and stretches some two light-years out into the cosmos.

关于奥尔特云，有把握的只能说到这种程度：它始于冥王星以外，向宇宙里伸展大约两光年。

It is just too far. As it is, even with the Hubble telescope, we can't see even into the Oort cloud, so we don't actually know that it is there.

实在太遥远了。事实上，即便使用哈勃望远镜，我们也看不到奥尔特云，因此我们实际上不知道它在哪里。

We won't get to the solar system's edge until we have passed through the Oort cloud, a vast celestial realm of drifting comets, and we won't reach the Oort cloud for another. I'm so sorry about this-ten thousand years.

要到达太阳系的边缘，我们非得穿过奥尔特云，那是个彗星飘游的茫茫天际。而我们--我为此感到很遗憾-还要再花1万年时间才能抵达奥尔特云。

The Oort cloud is thought to contain trillions of icy chunks, some of which, because of a collision or the pull of a passing star, from time to time fall inward.

人们认为奥尔特云包含数以万亿计的冰块，其中一些由于碰撞或擦肩而过的恒星的引力，不时向太阳系内坠落。

Properly called the Opik-Oort cloud, it is named for the Estonian astronomer Ernst Opik, who hypothesized its existence in 1932, and for the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, who refined the calculations eighteen years later.

也许该称呼它为奥匹克 - 奥尔特云，它是根据爱沙尼亚的天文学家恩斯特·奥匹克命名的，因为是他在1932年发现奥匹克 - 奥尔特云的，同时也是为纪念荷兰天文学家奥尔特扬，因为他18年后细化计算定位了奥匹克 - 奥尔特云。