{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.01757188498402556, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.27, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
THE EVOLUTION OF COMETS AND THE DETECTABILITY OF EXTRASOLAR OORT CLOUDS

According to standard theory, comets are natural products of solar-system formation, ejected to the Oort cloud by gravitational scattering events during the epoch of giant planet formation. Stored far from the Sun for billions of years, comets almost certainly contain a record of the events which occurred during (and perhaps even before) the epoch of planetary formation. This dissertation examines the evolutionary processes that affect comets in the Oort cloud and presents the results of two searches for evidence of extrasolar Oort clouds (ESOCs).