Solved cryptogram
Comets on very long orbits fall in from a vast shell of icy bodies far beyond the planets.
Astronomy Facts, sourced to NASA.
What it means
The Oort cloud is inferred rather than seen. Long period comets arrive from every direction rather than along the plane the planets share, which points to a roughly spherical reservoir surrounding the whole system at enormous distance. Its outer parts are so weakly held that a passing star can nudge one of its members onto a path toward the sun.
The claim comes from NASA, and the page it comes from was read on 2026-08-27 to confirm it still says this.
This is not the kind of claim that goes out of date, which is why it was set as a puzzle rather than a fact with a shelf life.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 72 letters over 19 different ones, graded medium.
- SourceNASA
- CollectionAstronomy Facts
- Difficultymedium
- Length72 letters, 19 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.