<p>It depends on what you call large. There may be hundreds of thousands of icy bodies larger than 100 km (62 miles) and an estimated trillion or more comets within the Kuiper Belt. But the total mass of objects in the Kuiper belt is estimated to be less than 10% of earth's mass.  So the Kuiper belt is largly composed of small icy onjects. These objects are very hard to see with existing telescopes because the are so small and not much sunlight where they are.</p>
<p>References:
<a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/in-depth/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/in-depth/</a></p>
<p><a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/792/10-things-to-know-about-the-kuiper-belt/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/792/10-things-to-know-about-the-kuiper-belt/</a></p>
<p><a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/overview/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/overview/</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-08T03:57:04.097Z
2021-02-08T03:57:04.097Z
Natsfan
<p>There is a problem in my example sheet trying to teach me distributions. My result is that Kuiper belt objects are dominated by large mass objects. Is this supported by observational evidence?</p>

<solar-system><kuiper-belt>
Is the mass of Kuiper belt dominated by large objects?
zabop
# Is the mass of Kuiper belt dominated by large objects?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-02-05)

There is a problem in my example sheet trying to teach me distributions. My result is that Kuiper belt objects are dominated by large mass objects. Is this supported by observational evidence?

**Tags:** solar-system, kuiper-belt


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2021-02-08. Score: 2

It depends on what you call large. There may be hundreds of thousands of icy bodies larger than 100 km (62 miles) and an estimated trillion or more comets within the Kuiper Belt. But the total mass of objects in the Kuiper belt is estimated to be less than 10% of earth's mass. So the Kuiper belt is largly composed of small icy onjects. These objects are very hard to see with existing telescopes because the are so small and not much sunlight where they are.

References:
<https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/in-depth/>

<https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/792/10-things-to-know-about-the-kuiper-belt/>

<https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/overview/>


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