  The origin of the highly eccentric, inclined, and resonance-locked orbit of
Pluto has long been a puzzle. A possible explanation has been proposed recently
[Malhotra, R., {\it Nature} 365:819-21 (1993)] which suggests that these
extraordinary orbital properties may be a natural consequence of the formation
and early dynamical evolution of the outer Solar system. A resonance capture
mechanism is possible during the clearing of the residual planetesimal debris
and the formation of the Oort Cloud of comets by planetesimal mass loss from
the vicinity of the giant planets. If this mechanism were in operation during
the early history of the planetary system, the entire region between the orbit
of Neptune and approximately 50 AU would have been swept by first order mean
motion resonances. Thus, resonance capture could occur not only for Pluto, but
quite generally for other trans-Neptunian small bodies. Some consequences of
this evolution for the present-day dynamical structure of the trans-Neptunian
region are: (i) most of the objects in the region beyond Neptune and up to
$\sim\!50$ AU exist in very narrow zones located at orbital resonances with
Neptune (particularly the 3:2 and the 2:1 resonances), and (ii) these resonant
objects would have significantly large eccentricities. The distribution of
objects in the Kuiper Belt as predicted by this theory is presented here.
Keywords{solar system: origins, dynamics --- Pluto --- comets --- Kuiper Belt}
