Images captured by the LASCO instrument have shown that this did not happen when the comet was in LASCO's field of view, which is approximately the size of the constellation Orion. "Comet Hyakutake could have passed through the solar system many times before", said Dr. Brueckner, who is also head of the NRL's Solar Physics Branch. "How many times remains a mystery".Hyakutake's orbit carries it back into the so-called "Oort Cloud" a vast collection of billions of comets that is located 1.4 light years away from the solar system. These comets are presumably the remnants of the cloud from which the solar system were formed billions of years ago.