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Brown said Sedna occupies a region of space beyond the Kuiper Belt but inside the theorized Oort Cloud, a distant reservoir of icy comets that are detected only when they zoom through the inner solar system on occasion. The Oort Cloud is thought to extend halfway to the next known star, but scientists know almost nothing about its scope, density or composition.
Brown said the discovery suggests the Oort Cloud might be more dense -- containing more objects -- than was previously thought.
"It is very likely that there are more inner Oort cloud objects like Sedna," Brown says, noting that only 15 percent of the sky has been surveyed for objects so dim as this.
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Wonder how much a denser than expected Oort Cloud and similar impossible-to-detect comet clouds throughout the Milky Way and other galaxies may help resolve the "dark matter" mystery.