PT2 was out of the running before the Pluto flyby. On August 26, 2015, the first target, (nicknamed "Ultima Thule" and later named 486958 Arrokoth), was chosen. Course adjustment took place in late October and early November 2015, leading to a flyby in January 2019. On July 1, 2016, NASA approved additional funding for "New Horizons" to visit the object.
Exploration
Kuiper belt
Kuiper belt | Exploration
Yes - 'New Horizons' was launched on January 19, 2006 -the first spacecraft to explore the Kuiper belt Yes On January 19, 2006, the first spacecraft to explore the Kuiper belt, "New Horizons", was launched, which flew by Pluto on July 14, 2015. Yes, in the late 2010s, a design study by Glen Costigan and colleagues. Yes, the "New Horizons" was the first spacecraft to explore the Kuiper elt.
large objects ( 10 m) in space originating from a region between jupiter and mars
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Asteroid belt
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can you explain its structure?
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Asteroids become darker and redder with age due to space weathering. Composition is calculated from three primary sources: albedo, surface spectrum, and density.
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how is it classified into groups?
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Orbital classification; Quasi-satellites and horseshoe objects ; Spectral classification
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can you name a belt with similar properties?
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Kuiper belt
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who discovered this?
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David Jewitt
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have there been any missions conducted to study it?
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In 1987, astronomer David Jewitt, then at MIT, became increasingly puzzled by "the apparent emptiness of the outer Solar System". He encouraged then-graduate student Jane Luu to aid him in his endeavour to locate another object beyond Pluto's orbit, because, as he told her, "If we don't, nobody will." Using telescopes at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, Jewitt and Luu conducted their search in much the same way as Clyde Tombaugh and Charles Kowal had, with a blink comparator. Initially, examination of each pair of plates took about eight hours, but the process was sped up with the arrival of electronic charge-coupled devices or CCDs, which, though their field of view was narrower, were not only more efficient at collecting light (they retained 90% of the light that hit them, rather than the 10% achieved by photographs) but allowed the blinking process to be done virtually, on a computer screen.
Kuiper belt | Discovery
was discovered on 10 December 2001 by David C. Jewitt, Scott S. Sheppard and Jan Kleyna using 2.2-meter University of Hawaii reflector on Mauna Kea. belongs to the dynamically cold population of the classical Kuiper belt objects, which small orbital eccentricities and inclinations. Their semi-major axes reside mainly in the interval 40–45 AU.
(524366) 2001 XR254 | Discovery and orbit
The first stage is the detection rate for images that came from INT as a function of magnitude, which was investigated using artificial images adding to the original frames. The second stage involved examining the detection rate for a series of artificial images from INT that followed the typical slow moving solar system objects (SMO) track. The outcome of this survey was a detection of two new Kuiper belts objects within the area of 0.7 degree sq. to a limiting magnitude mR=23.5.
Anna N. Żytkow | Kuiper belt discoveries
Jewitt's research interests have embraced many topics in planetary science, including the Kuiper belt, circumstellar discs, planetary ring systems, the physical properties of comets, frozen volatiles in asteroids, the moons of the gas giant planets and the formation and evolution of the Solar System. In 1992, after five years of searching, Jewitt and the Vietnamese-American astronomer Jane X. Luu discovered 15760 Albion, the first Kuiper belt object (other than Pluto and its largest moon Charon) to be detected. Jewitt and Luu named the object after a character who features in the mythological poetry of William Blake, a writer whom Jewitt admires.
David C. Jewitt | Research
As a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she looked at links between asteroids and comets for her main PhD project. She also worked with David C. Jewitt to discover the Kuiper Belt, an area previously believed to contain no objects. In 1992, after five years of observation, they found the first known Kuiper Belt object other than Pluto and its largest moon Charon, using the University of Hawaii's 2.2 meter telescope on Mauna Kea. This object is (15760) 1992 QB, which she and Jewitt nicknamed "Smiley". The American Astronomical Society awarded Luu the Annie J.
Jane Luu | Work as a graduate student and co-discovery of the Kuiper Belt
On January 19, 2006, the first spacecraft to explore the Kuiper belt, "New Horizons", was launched, which flew by Pluto on July 14, 2015. Beyond the Pluto flyby, the mission's goal was to locate and investigate other, farther objects in the Kuiper belt. On October 15, 2014, it was revealed that "Hubble" had uncovered three potential targets, provisionally designated PT1 ("potential target 1"), PT2 and PT3 by the "New Horizons" team. The objects' diameters were estimated to be in the 30–55 km range; too small to be seen by ground telescopes, at distances from the Sun of 43–44 AU, which would put the encounters in the 2018–2019 period.
Kuiper belt | Exploration
In December 1995, Mike Irwin, Scott Tremaine, and Anna N. Żytkow collaborated on the survey of two slow-moving objects, which are probable members of the Kuiper belt. Żytkow and the group followed Edgeworth (1949) and Kuipers (1951) research, which indicates that protoplanetary disks extend beyond Neptune and that the disk material beyond Neptune had not coalesced into planets. This group of planetesimals is now known as the Kuiper belt. Żytkow and the rest of the group members spent most of their time adjusting the focus of the camera and instruments attached to the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT). The group used the Monte Carlo method, which provided multiple simulations in two separate stages.
Anna N. Żytkow | Kuiper belt discoveries
In particular, it seems that Neptune long ago moved outward from an earlier orbit that was much closer to the Sun, and that the Kuiper belt objects, also originally closer to the Sun, were drawn outward with it.
David C. Jewitt | Research
(The resonant objects in the 3:2 mean-motion resonance Jewitt has named plutinos, in recognition of Pluto's being the first of them to be discovered.) Mathematical models of the formation and evolution of the Solar System have indicated that in order for the Kuiper belt to have developed the structure that has been observed, the Kuiper belt objects and the gas giant planets must have come to their present orbits after migrating to them from elsewhere, pulled away from their earlier paths by their gravitational interactions with one another and with the disc of material that had coalesced around the juvenile Sun.
David C. Jewitt | Research
For instance, the authors calculated that an orbiter mission could reach Ixion after 17 years cruise time if launched in 2039. In the late 2010s, a design study by Glen Costigan and colleagues discussed orbital capture and multi-target scenarios for Kuiper belt objects. Some Kuiper belt objects studied in that particular paper included , , and 47171 Lempo. Another design study by Ryan McGranaghan and colleagues in 2011 explored a spacecraft survey of the large trans-Neptunian objects Quaoar, Sedna, Makemake, Haumea, and Eris. Interstellar missions have evaluated including a flyby of Kuiper Belt objects as part of their mission.
Kuiper belt | Design studies and concept missions
Today, CCDs form the basis for most astronomical detectors. In 1988, Jewitt moved to the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Hawaii. Luu later joined him to work at the University of Hawaii's 2.24 m telescope at Mauna Kea. Eventually, the field of view for CCDs had increased to 1024 by 1024 pixels, which allowed searches to be conducted far more rapidly. Finally, after five years of searching, Jewitt and Luu announced on August 30, 1992 the "Discovery of the candidate Kuiper belt object ". Six months later, they discovered a second object in the region, (181708) 1993 FW.
Kuiper belt | Discovery
was discovered on 21 August 2001 by Marc William Buie from Cerro Tololo Observatory, La Serena, Chile. belongs to the dynamically cold population of the classical Kuiper belt objects, which have small orbital eccentricities and inclinations. Their semi-major axes reside mainly in the interval 40–45 AU.
(275809) 2001 QY297 | Discovery and orbit
, provisional designation , is a small trans-Neptunian object from the Kuiper belt located in the outermost region of the Solar System, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 17 April 2012, by a team of astronomers using one of the Magellan Telescopes in Chile during the New Horizons KBO Search in order to find a potential flyby target for the "New Horizons" spacecraft. In December 2017, this classical Kuiper belt object was imaged by the spacecraft from afar at a record distance from Earth.
(516977) 2012 HZ84 | Introduction
Observation ruled out this hypothesis.
Kuiper belt | Hypotheses
As of January 2019, only one classical Kuiper belt object has been observed up close by spacecraft. Both Voyager spacecrafts have passed through the region before the discovery of the Kuiper belt. New Horizons was the first mission to visit a classical KBO. After its successful exploration of the Pluto system in 2015, the NASA spacecraft has visited the small KBO 486958 Arrokoth at a distance of on 1 January 2019.
Classical Kuiper belt object | Exploration
During the course of the late 1990s, a number of trans-Neptunian objects were discovered, confirming the existence of a Kuiper belt. Interest in a mission to the Kuiper belt arose such that NASA instructed the JPL to re-purpose the mission as not only a Pluto flyby, but also a Kuiper belt object (KBO) flyby. The mission was thus re-branded as the Pluto Kuiper Express, after briefly being billed as Pluto Express prior to the revision. The weight of the spacecraft was raised again, this time to 175 kilograms, and NASA allowed further liberty with the project's budget. However, Goldin later decided that Pluto Kuiper Express was of low importance, and thus cut funding to the project drastically.
Exploration of Pluto | Kuiper belt, Pluto Kuiper Express and cancellation
, also written as (145452) 2005 RN43, is a classical Kuiper belt object. It has an estimated diameter of . It was discovered by Andrew Becker, Andrew Puckett and Jeremy Kubica on 10 September 2005 at Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico. Brown estimates that it is possibly a dwarf planet.
(145452) 2005 RN43 | Introduction
, provisional designation , is a trans-Neptunian object and cubewano from the Kuiper belt, located in the outermost region of the Solar System. It was discovered on 8 April 2014, by astronomers with the Pan-STARRS survey at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, United States. The classical Kuiper belt object belongs to the hot population and is a dwarf planet candidate, as it measures approximately in diameter.
(505624) 2014 GU53 | Introduction
(Blake in turn took the name from an ancient poetic term for Jewitt's native England.) Jewitt and Luu would have preferred to name the object Smiley after the protagonist of John le Carré's novel "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", a favourite book of both of theirs, but they were unable to do so because the name had already been allocated to the asteroid 1613 Smiley in honour of Charles Hugh Smiley, an American astronomer. Since discovering 15760 Albion, Jewitt has identified dozens of other objects in the Kuiper belt in a series of pioneering wide field surveys. Thanks to his work and the efforts of other astronomers, it is now known that the Kuiper belt objects are divided into four distinct populations.
David C. Jewitt | Research
The precise origins of the Kuiper belt and its complex structure are still unclear, and astronomers are awaiting the completion of several wide-field survey telescopes such as Pan-STARRS and the future LSST, which should reveal many currently unknown KBOs. These surveys will provide data that will help determine answers to these questions. The Kuiper belt is thought to consist of planetesimals, fragments from the original protoplanetary disc around the Sun that failed to fully coalesce into planets and instead formed into smaller bodies, the largest less than in diameter. Studies of the crater counts on Pluto and Charon revealed a scarcity of small craters suggesting that such objects formed directly as sizeable objects in the range of tens of kilometers in diameter rather than being accreted from much smaller, roughly kilometer scale bodies.
Kuiper belt | Origin
In what is called the dynamically cold classical Kuiper belt, of which 15760 Albion is the prototypical member, objects have orbits that are almost circular and only slightly tilted with respect to the orbits of the major planets. In the dynamically hot classical Kuiper belt, objects have orbits that are more elongated and that are tilted at steeper angles. In the scattered disc, also called the scattered Kuiper belt, discovered in 1997, bodies move in large orbits that are more elongated and more tilted still. The Resonant Kuiper belt objects move in orbits that are harmonically related to that of Neptune: the ratio of the orbital period of a resonant object to the Neptunian year is equal to one small integer divided by another.
David C. Jewitt | Research
He was awarded the Kavli Prize (shared with Jane X. Luu and David C. Jewitt) in 2012 "for discovering and characterizing the Kuiper Belt and its largest members, work that led to a major advance in the understanding of the history of our planetary system."
Michael E. Brown | Introduction
, provisional designation , is a trans-Neptunian object from the Kuiper belt located in the outermost region of the Solar System. It was discovered on 23 September 1998, by American astronomer Arianna Gleason at the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. The cold classical Kuiper belt object is a dwarf planet candidate, as it measures approximately in diameter. It has a grey-blue color and a rotation period of 8.8 hours.
(35671) 1998 SN165 | Introduction
By 2018, over 2000 Kuiper belts objects had been discovered. Over one thousand bodies were found in a belt in the twenty years (1992–2012), after finding (named in 2018, 15760 Albion), showing a vast belt of bodies more than just Pluto and Albion. By the 2010s the full extent and nature of Kuiper belt bodies is largely unknown. Finally, in the late 2010s, two KBOs were closely flown past by an unmanned spacecraft, providing much closer observations of the Plutonian system and another KBO. Studies conducted since the trans-Neptunian region was first charted have shown that the region now called the Kuiper belt is not the point of origin of short-period comets, but that they instead derive from a linked population called the scattered disc.
Kuiper belt | Discovery
, provisionally known as , is a trans-Neptunian object that resides in the scattered disc region beyond the Kuiper belt. It was discovered on 9 September 2005, by American astronomers Andrew Becker, Andrew Puckett and Jeremy Kubica at Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico. It measures approximately 500-600 kilometers in diameter.
(145451) 2005 RM43 | Introduction
By 2018, over 2000 Kuiper belts objects were discovered.
(181708) 1993 FW | Introduction
After receiving her doctorate, Luu worked as an assistant professor at Harvard University, since 1994. Luu also served as a professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Following her time in Europe, Luu returned to the United States and works on instrumentation as a Senior Scientist at Lincoln Laboratory at MIT, focusing on defense-industry projects, specifically lidar systems. In December 2004, Luu and Jewitt reported the discovery of crystalline water ice on Quaoar, which was at the time the largest known Kuiper Belt object. They also found indications of ammonia hydrate. Their report theorized that the ice likely formed underground, becoming exposed after a collision with another Kuiper Belt object sometime in the last few million years.
Jane Luu | Professional life
, provisional designation , is a trans-Neptunian object from the classical Kuiper belt, located in the outermost region of the Solar System. It was discovered on 30 January 2011, by astronomers with the Pan-STARRS survey at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, United States. The classical Kuiper belt object is also a dwarf planet candidate, as it measures approximately in diameter.
(523702) 2014 HW199 | Introduction
, provisional designation , is a trans-Neptunian object and cubewano from the Kuiper belt, located in the outermost region of the Solar System. It was discovered on 13 March 2011, by astronomers with the Pan-STARRS survey at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, United States. The classical Kuiper belt object belongs to the hot population and is a dwarf planet candidate, as it measures approximately in diameter.
(523684) 2014 CQ23 | Introduction
Cannon Award in Astronomy in 1991. In 1992, Luu received a Hubble Fellowship from the Space Telescope Science Institute and chose the University of California, Berkeley as a host institution. The Phocaea main-belt asteroid 5430 Luu is named in her honor. She received her PhD in 1992 at MIT.
Jane Luu | Work as a graduate student and co-discovery of the Kuiper Belt
Over one thousand bodies were found in a belt between orbiting between about 30-50 AU from the Sun in the twenty years (1992-2012), after finding 1992 QB1 (named in 2018, 15760 Albion), showing a vast belt of bodies more than just Pluto and Albion. By 2018, over 2000 Kuiper belts objects were discovered.
(15788) 1993 SB | Introduction
In 1980, in his paper "On the existence of a comet belt beyond Neptune", Fernández proposed that periodic comets arrived too frequently into the inner Solar System to be accounted for solely by having arrived from the Oort cloud, and that a trans-Neptunian belt of comets at around 50 AU would be required to explain them. Subsequent computer models by Martin Duncan, Tom Quinn and Scott Tremaine in Canada supported the view, and led eventually to the discovery of the Kuiper belt. Many astronomers, including David Jewitt, who discovered the belt, believe that Fernández deserves more credit than anyone else, including Gerard Kuiper, for predicting its existence.
Julio Ángel Fernández | Kuiper belt
The Kuiper belt was named after Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper, regarded by many as the father of modern planetary science, though his role in hypothesising it has been heavily contested. In 1951, he proposed the existence of what is now called the Kuiper Belt, a disk-shaped region of minor planets outside the orbit of Neptune, which also is a source of short-period comets.
List of Dutch discoveries | Kuiper belt (1951)
, provisional designation , is a trans-Neptunian object and cubewano from the Kuiper belt, located in the outermost region of the Solar System. It was discovered on 12 April 2011, by astronomers with the Pan-STARRS survey at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, United States. The classical Kuiper belt object belongs to the hot population and is a dwarf planet candidate, as it measures approximately in diameter.
(523687) 2014 DF143 | Introduction
The cold population, on the other hand, has been proposed to have formed more or less in its current position because the loose binaries would be unlikely to survive encounters with Neptune. Although the Nice model appears to be able to at least partially explain a compositional difference, it has also been suggested the color difference may reflect differences in surface evolution.
Kuiper belt | Classical belt
Leonard was one of the first astronomers to hypothesize the existence of a trans-Neptunian population. In 1930, soon after Pluto's discovery by Clyde Tombaugh, Leonard pondered whether it was "not likely that in Pluto there has come to light the "first" of a "series" of ultra-Neptunian bodies, the remaining members of which still await discovery but which are destined eventually to be detected".
Frederick C. Leonard | Kuiper belt hypothesis
, also written as (33001) 1997 CU29 is a cold classical Kuiper belt object, or cubewano. It has a perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) at 41.6 AU and an aphelion (farthest approach from the Sun) of 45.1 AU. is about 280 km in diameter. It was discovered on February 6, 1997, by David C. Jewitt, Jane X. Luu, Chad Trujillo, and Jun Chen at the Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii.
(33001) 1997 CU29 | Introduction
, provisional designation , is a trans-Neptunian object and member of the Haumea family that resides in the Kuiper belt, located in the outermost region of the Solar System. It was discovered on 19 September 1995, by American astronomer Nichole Danzl of the Spacewatch program at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, in the United States. It measures approximately 600–700 kilometers in diameter and was the second-brightest known object in the Kuiper belt, after Pluto, until was discovered.
(24835) 1995 SM55 | Introduction
The Kuiper belt object is considered to be a resonant trans-Neptunian object in a higher 5:9 orbital resonance with the ice giant Neptune. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 40.2–49.6 AU once every 300 years and 10 months (semi-major axis of 44.9 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.11 and an inclination of 3° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with its official first observation by David Osip, Paul Schechter, David Borncamp, Susan Benecchi and Scott Sheppard of the New Horizons KBO Search using the Magellan II (Clay) telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory, located in the Atacama desert in Chile.
2012 HE85 | Orbit and classification
Since 2000, a number of KBOs with diameters of between 500 and , more than half that of Pluto (diameter 2370 km), have been discovered. 50000 Quaoar, a classical KBO discovered in 2002, is over 1,200 km across. and , both announced on July 29, 2005, are larger still. Other objects, such as 28978 Ixion (discovered in 2001) and 20000 Varuna (discovered in 2000), measure roughly across.
Kuiper belt | Largest KBOs
was discovered on 10 January 2002, by astronomers at the Palomar Observatory in California. Astronomers involved in the discovery were Michael Brown, Chad Trujillo, Eleanor Helin, Michael Hicks, Kenneth Lawrence and Steven H. Pravdo. It is located near the Kuiper cliff.
(55565) 2002 AW197 | Discovery
Eventually, despite official selection of scientific instruments and the appointment of several investigators, then-Science Mission Directorate Edward J. Weiler ordered the cancellation of the entire Pluto and Kuiper belt mission in 2000, citing growing budget constraints, which had plagued the project since its inception in 1992. At the time of cancellation, the projected costs surpassed $1 billion.
Exploration of Pluto | Kuiper belt, Pluto Kuiper Express and cancellation
Arrokoth was discovered on 26 June 2014 using the Hubble Space Telescope during a preliminary survey to find a suitable Kuiper belt object for the "New Horizons" spacecraft to fly by. Scientists of the "New Horizons" team were searching for an object in the Kuiper belt that the spacecraft could study after Pluto, and their next target had to be reachable on "New Horizons" remaining fuel. Using large ground-based telescopes on Earth, researchers began looking in 2011 for candidate objects and searched multiple times per year for several years. However, none of the objects found were reachable by the "New Horizons" spacecraft and most Kuiper belt objects that may be suitable were just too distant and faint to be seen through Earth's atmosphere.
486958 Arrokoth | Discovery
From this he concluded that "the outer region of the solar system, beyond the orbits of the planets, is occupied by a very large number of comparatively small bodies" and that, from time to time, one of their number "wanders from its own sphere and appears as an occasional visitor to the inner solar system", becoming a comet. In 1951, in a paper in "Astrophysics: A Topical Symposium", Gerard Kuiper speculated on a similar disc having formed early in the Solar System's evolution, but he did not think that such a belt still existed today. Kuiper was operating on the assumption, common in his time, that Pluto was the size of Earth and had therefore scattered these bodies out toward the Oort cloud or out of the Solar System.
Kuiper belt | Hypotheses
Bernstein, Trilling, "et al". (2003) found evidence that the rapid decline in objects of 100 km or more in radius beyond 50 AU is real, and not due to observational bias. Possible explanations include that material at that distance was too scarce or too scattered to accrete into large objects, or that subsequent processes removed or destroyed those that did. Patryk Lykawka of Kobe University claimed that the gravitational attraction of an unseen large planetary object, perhaps the size of Earth or Mars, might be responsible.
Kuiper belt | Kuiper cliff
After the discovery of Pluto in 1930, many speculated that it might not be alone. The region now called the Kuiper belt was hypothesized in various forms for decades. It was only in 1992 that the first direct evidence for its existence was found. The number and variety of prior speculations on the nature of the Kuiper belt have led to continued uncertainty as to who deserves credit for first proposing it.
Kuiper belt | History
was discovered on 18 June 2002 by Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at Palomar Observatory. The discovery was announced by the Minor Planet Center on 21 November 2002. In 2007, an archive search revealed the existence of several precovery observations of , the earliest of which was taken on 8 April 1954, as part of the Digitized Sky Survey at Palomar Mountain. In July 2016, was observed by the "New Horizons" spacecraft, as part of its extended Kuiper belt mission. The observations significantly improved the knowledge of 's orbit and phase curve. , has been observed 74 times. It has an observation arc of 64 years.
(307261) 2002 MS4 | Discovery
He has subsequently published many papers on the trans-Neptunian population.
Julio Ángel Fernández | Kuiper belt
, provisional designation , is a trans-Neptunian object from the classical Kuiper belt located in the outermost region of the Solar System. The cubewano belongs to the orbitally unexcited cold population. It was discovered on 15 April 1994, by astronomers David Jewitt and Jun Chen at the Mauna Kea Observatories, near Hilo, Hawaii.
(15807) 1994 GV9 | Introduction
Quaoar has been considered as a flyby target for a probe tasked with exploring the interstellar medium, as it currently lies near the heliospheric nose; Pontus Brandt at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and his colleagues have studied a probe that would flyby Quaoar in the 2030s before continuing to the interstellar medium through the heliospheric nose. Among their interests in Quaoar include its likely disappearing methane atmosphere and cryovolcanism. The mission studied by Brandt and his colleagues would launch using SLS and achieve 30 km/s using a Jupiter flyby. Alternatively, for an orbiter mission, a study published in 2012 concluded that Ixion and Huya are among the most feasible targets.
Kuiper belt | Design studies and concept missions
was first observed on 17 March 2015, by a team of astronomers led by Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science as part of the survey for distant solar system objects beyond the Kuiper Cliff using the new wide-field cameras on the Subaru and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) telescopes.
2015 FJ345 | Discovery and naming
, also written (118228) 1996 TQ66, is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) that resides in the Kuiper belt. It was discovered on October 8, 1996, by Chad Trujillo, David C. Jewitt. Jane X. Luu, and Jun Chen. It is in a 2:3 orbital resonance with Neptune similar to Pluto, which classifies it as a plutino.
(118228) 1996 TQ66 | Introduction
The probe New Horizons encountered the Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth on 1 January. This is the farthest object from the Sun ever to have a close encounter with a spacecraft. The Japanese asteroid exploration mission Hayabusa2 made a second touchdown with 162173 Ryugu to collect samples, and departed for Earth on 12 November. NASA declared the Mars rover "Opportunity"'s mission over on 13 February. The InSight lander observed the first recorded Marsquake in April.
2019 in spaceflight | Exploration of the Solar System
The next year in 1993, objects in similar orbits were found including (15788) 1993 SB, (15789) 1993 SC, (181708) 1993 FW, and (385185) 1993 RO. Over one thousand bodies were found in the Kuiper belt orbiting between about 30&50 AU from the Sun in the twenty years (1992-2012) after finding 1992 QB1 (named in 2018, 15760 Albion). This shows a vast belt of bodies, more than just Pluto and Albion. By 2018, over 2000 Kuiper belts objects were discovered.
15760 Albion | Legacy
The left image is a "top view" of a wide belt, and the right image is an "edge view" of a narrow belt. Computer simulations of dust in the Kuiper belt suggest that when it was younger, it may have resembled the narrow rings seen around younger stars.
Kuiper belt | Extrasolar Kuiper belts
was first observed on 24 March 2014 by a team of astronomers led by Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science as part of the survey for distant solar system objects beyond the Kuiper Cliff using the new wide-field cameras on the Subaru and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) telescopes.
2014 FZ71 | Discovery and naming
The first astronomer to suggest the existence of a trans-Neptunian population was Frederick C. Leonard. Soon after Pluto's discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Leonard pondered whether it was "not likely that in Pluto there has come to light the "first" of a "series" of ultra-Neptunian bodies, the remaining members of which still await discovery but which are destined eventually to be detected". That same year, astronomer Armin O. Leuschner suggested that Pluto "may be one of many long-period planetary objects yet to be discovered." In 1943, in the "Journal of the British Astronomical Association", Kenneth Edgeworth hypothesized that, in the region beyond Neptune, the material within the primordial solar nebula was too widely spaced to condense into planets, and so rather condensed into a myriad of smaller bodies.
Kuiper belt | Hypotheses
In order to find these fainter Kuiper belt objects, the "New Horizons" team initiated a search for suitable targets with the Hubble Space Telescope on 16 June 2014. Arrokoth was first imaged by Hubble on 26 June 2014, 10 days after the "New Horizons" team began their search for potential targets. While digitally processing images from Hubble, Arrokoth was identified by astronomer Marc Buie, member of the "New Horizons" team. Buie reported his finding to the search team for subsequent analysis and confirmation. Arrokoth was the second object found during the search, after . Three more candidate targets were later discovered with Hubble, though follow-up astrometric observations eventually ruled them out.
486958 Arrokoth | Discovery
Were Kuiper's hypothesis correct, there would not be a Kuiper belt today. The hypothesis took many other forms in the following decades. In 1962, physicist Al G.W. Cameron postulated the existence of "a tremendous mass of small material on the outskirts of the solar system". In 1964, Fred Whipple, who popularised the famous "dirty snowball" hypothesis for cometary structure, thought that a "comet belt" might be massive enough to cause the purported discrepancies in the orbit of Uranus that had sparked the search for Planet X, or, at the very least, massive enough to affect the orbits of known comets.
Kuiper belt | Hypotheses
, also written as (120178) 2003 OP32, is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) that resides in the Kuiper belt. It was discovered on July 26, 2003 by Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo and David L. Rabinowitz at Palomar Mountain in California.
(120178) 2003 OP32 | Introduction
Quaoar was discovered on 4 June 2002 by American astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at the Palomar Observatory in the Palomar Mountain Range in San Diego County, California. The discovery formed part of the Caltech Wide Area Sky Survey, which was designed to search for the brightest Kuiper belt objects using the Palomar Observatory's 1.22-meter Samuel Oschin telescope. Quaoar was first identified in images by Trujillo on 5 June 2002, when he noticed a dim, 18.6-magnitude object slowly moving among the stars of the constellation Ophiuchus. Quaoar appeared relatively bright for a distant object, suggesting that it could have a size comparable to the diameter of the dwarf planet Pluto.
50000 Quaoar | Discovery
, provisional designation , is a resonant trans-Neptunian object and possible dwarf planet from the circumstellar disc of the Kuiper belt in the outer Solar System, approximately 440 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 10 February 1999, by astronomers Jane Luu, David Jewitt and Chad Trujillo at Mauna Kea Observatories on the Big Island of Hawaii, United States.
(469306) 1999 CD158 | Introduction
1776 Kuiper, provisional designation , is a dark Eoan asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, approximately 38 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 24 September 1960, by Dutch astronomer couple Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten in collaboration with Dutch–American astronomer Tom Gehrels at the U.S. Palomar Observatory in California, and named after Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper.
1776 Kuiper | Introduction
The Deep Ecliptic Survey (DES) is a project to find Kuiper belt objects (KBOs), using the facilities of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO). The principal investigator is Robert L. Millis. Since 1998 through the end of 2003, the survey covered 550 square degrees with sensitivity of 22.5, which means an estimated 50% of objects of this magnitude have been found. The survey has also established the mean Kuiper Belt plane and introduced new formal definitions of the dynamical classes of Kuiper belt objects.
Deep Ecliptic Survey | Introduction
This implied that it might be around one-fourth the size of Pluto and comparable in size to the dwarf planet . Baltay, leader of the discovery team and chairman of Yale University's Department of Physics, regarded their discovery to be significant as Huya at the time was thought to be the largest object discovered in the Kuiper belt since Pluto. During an interview on their discovery, Baltay asserted: After the announcement of Huya's discovery, the discovery team found precovery images of Huya taken with the Palomar Observatory's Samuel Oschin telescope on 9 April 1996. These precovery images of Huya from Palomar are the earliest known observations of Huya.
38628 Huya | Discovery
The "New Horizons" team requested, and received, a mission extension through 2021 to explore additional Kuiper belt objects (KBOs). Funding was secured on July 1, 2016. During this Kuiper Belt Extended Mission (KEM), the spacecraft has performed a close fly-by of 486958 Arrokoth and will conduct more distant observations on an additional two dozen objects, and possibly make a fly-by of another KBO.
New Horizons | Mission extension
On June 14, 2007, in an address to the Smithsonian Institution for their "Exploring the Solar System Lecture Series", Stern commented on the New Horizons mission:
Alan Stern | Inspiration for Pluto/Kuiper belt mission
The multi-year POSS projects were followed by the Palomar Quasar Equatorial Survey Team (QUEST) Variability survey. This survey yielded results that were used by several projects, including the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking project. Another program that used the QUEST results discovered 90377 Sedna on 14 November 2003, and around 40 Kuiper belt objects. Other programs that share the camera are Shri Kulkarni's search for gamma-ray bursts (this takes advantage of the automated telescope's ability to react as soon as a burst is seen and take a series of snapshots of the fading burst), Richard Ellis's search for supernovae to test whether the universe's expansion is accelerating or not, and S.
Palomar Observatory | QUEST
1995 GJ might be a trans-Neptunian object and/or high-inclination cubewano from the Kuiper belt in the outermost region of the Solar System, and based on the calculated distance and brightness is assumed to be approximately in diameter. It is a lost minor planet that has only been observed six times on the nights of 3–4 April 1995, by David Jewitt and Jun Chen at the Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii, using the UH88 telescope, and has not been observed ever since. The object is estimated to have been discovered right at perihelion (closest approach to the Sun). On the night of discovery, the object is estimated to have been moving away from Earth at with the uncertainty in the velocity being an unrealistic (80% the speed of light).
1995 GJ | Introduction
In 2016 "New Horizons" observed the Kuiper belt object, 15810 Arawn. It is the object that is pointed with an arrow.
Long Range Reconnaissance Imager | 15810 Arawn
469705 ǂKá̦gára, official designation , is a trans-Neptunian object and binary system of the core Kuiper belt, located in the outermost region of the Solar System. It was discovered on 2005 March 11 by Marc William Buie at Kitt Peak Observatory. The primary body measures perhaps in diameter. Its ≈120-kilometer (75-mile) companion ǃHãunu was discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009. The ǂKá̦gára–ǃHãunu system is currently undergoing mutual occultation and eclipsing events in which one body casts its shadow upon or obstructs the view of the other.
469705 ǂKá̦gára | Introduction
, also written as is a resonant trans-Neptunian object from the Kuiper belt, located in the outermost region of the Solar System. It measures approximately 134 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by astronomers at the Mauna Kea Observatory on 28 April 1998.
(91133) 1998 HK151 | Introduction
The initial estimated probabilities that these objects were reachable within "New Horizons" fuel budget were 100%, 7%, and 97%, respectively. All were members of the "cold" (low-inclination, low-eccentricity) classical Kuiper belt, and thus very different from Pluto. PT1 (given the temporary designation "1110113Y" on the HST web site), the most favorably situated object, was magnitude 26.8, 30–45 km in diameter, and was encountered in January 2019. Once sufficient orbital information was provided, the Minor Planet Center gave official designations to the three target KBOs: (PT1), (PT2), and (PT3). By the fall of 2014, a possible fourth target, , had been eliminated by follow-up observations.
Kuiper belt | Exploration
15760 Albion, provisional designation , was the first trans-Neptunian object to be discovered after Pluto and Charon. Measuring about 108–167 kilometres in diameter, it was discovered in 1992 by David C. Jewitt and Jane X. Luu at the Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii. After the discovery, they dubbed the object ‘Smiley’ and it was shortly hailed as the tenth planet by the press. It is a "cold" classical Kuiper belt object and gave rise to the name "cubewano" for this kind of object, after the portion of its designation. Decoding its provisional designation, "QB" reveals that it was the 27th object found in the second half of August of that year.
15760 Albion | Introduction
A NASA study in 2019 that confirmed the viability of using small radioisotope or nuclear fission power systems combined with xenon electric propulsion for deep space exploration, used 2001 XH255 as a representative Kuiper Belt Object as the mission's destination to orbit.
(131697) 2001 XH255 | Potential for Exploration
It was discovered on 24 March 1996, by Australian astronomer Robert McNaught at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. was also a target of a rejected mission-proposal for the "Marco Polo" spacecraft. In 2017, scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Purple Mountain Observatory revealed a plan to land a probe on this asteroid in 2029, as part of an asteroid exploration mission.
(175706) 1996 FG3 | Introduction
, provisionally known as , is a resonant trans-Neptunian object that resides in the Kuiper belt in the outermost region of the Solar System. It was discovered on August 19, 2001 by Marc W. Buie. is a plutino, meaning that it is locked in a 3:2 orbital resonance with Neptune, much like Pluto.
(469372) 2001 QF298 | Introduction
, provisionally designated , is a trans-Neptunian object and possible dwarf planet residing in the outer Kuiper belt. It was discovered on October 22, 2014, by the Mount Lemmon Survey. It is listed on Mike Brown's website as a probable dwarf planet, ranked 67th most likely. It is approximately the size of 2 Pallas in the asteroid belt. On August 18, 2015, was found to have been discovered over four years previously, with the designation . This extended its observation arc to over 4 years, and then precovery observations were found using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey from 2009.
(472271) 2014 UM33 | Introduction
, provisionally known as , is a resonant trans-Neptunian object in the Kuiper belt located in the outermost regions of the Solar System. It measures approximately 291 kilometers in diameter. It has more carbon than typical of KBOs, and the first to be confirmed as having this composition in this region of space. It is thought that it had originated closer to the Sun, maybe even the main asteroid belt.
(120216) 2004 EW95 | Introduction
The densities and rock–ice fractions are known for only a small number of objects for which the diameters and the masses have been determined. The diameter can be determined by imaging with a high-resolution telescope such as the Hubble Space Telescope, by the timing of an occultation when an object passes in front of a star or, most commonly, by using the albedo of an object calculated from its infrared emissions. The masses are determined using the semi-major axes and periods of satellites, which are therefore known only for a few binary objects. The densities range from less than 0.4 to 2.6 g/cm.
Kuiper belt | Composition
Although the numbers of objects in the Kuiper belt and the scattered disc are hypothesized to be roughly equal, observational bias due to their greater distance means that far fewer SDOs have been observed to date.
Scattered disc | Discovery
, provisional designation , is a trans-Neptunian object and binary system from the classical Kuiper belt, located in the outermost region of the Solar System. It was discovered by American astronomer Marc Buie at Kitt Peak Observatory on 7 November 2002. The primary measures approximately in diameter.
(508869) 2002 VT130 | Introduction
PT2 was out of the running before the Pluto flyby. On August 26, 2015, the first target, (nicknamed "Ultima Thule" and later named 486958 Arrokoth), was chosen. Course adjustment took place in late October and early November 2015, leading to a flyby in January 2019. On July 1, 2016, NASA approved additional funding for "New Horizons" to visit the object.
Kuiper belt | Exploration
According to the surveys carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite IRAS and NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, "Kuiper" measures 36.0 and 40.0 kilometers in diameter, and its surface has a low albedo of 0.033 and 0.054, respectively. Typical value for C-, D- or P-type asteroids in the outer main-belt. However, as of 2017, "Kuiper"s composition, as well as its rotation period and shape remain unknown.
1776 Kuiper | Physical characteristics
50000 Quaoar is a non-resonant trans-Neptunian object (cubewano) and a possible dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a region of icy planetesimals beyond Neptune. It measures approximately in diameter, about half the diameter of Pluto. The object was discovered by American astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at the Palomar Observatory on 4 June 2002. Signs of water ice on the surface of Quaoar have been found, which suggests that cryovolcanism may be occurring on Quaoar. A small amount of methane is present on its surface, which can only be retained by the largest Kuiper belt objects. In February 2007, Weywot, a synchronous moon in orbit around Quaoar, was discovered by Brown.
50000 Quaoar | Introduction
The Kuiper belt is estimated to have 70,000 bodies of 100 km or larger. Freeman Dyson has suggested that within a few centuries human civilization will have relocated to the Kuiper belt. The Oort cloud is estimated to have up to a trillion comets.
Space colonization | Trans-Neptunian region
After the "New Horizons" probe completed its flyby of Arrokoth, the probe began observations of other nearby surrounding Kuiper belt objects, including . Observations of 's brightness variations at high phase angles allowed the "New Horizons" probe to make a rough determination of its rotation period as well as its shape. As "New Horizons" observed at phase angles near 90°, it displayed large variations in brightness, indicating that its shape is either extremely elongated or could be a binary system of two separated components. appeared to be possibly a separated binary in a few resolved "New Horizons" images, but it remains inconclusive.
2014 OS393 | Possible binary
, provisional designation and also known as o3l79, is a trans-Neptunian object from the classical Kuiper belt in the outermost region of the Solar System. It was discovered on 5 August 2013, by astronomer with the Outer Solar System Origins Survey at the Mauna Kea Observatories, Hawaii, in the United States. The classical Kuiper belt object belongs to the hot population and is a weak dwarf planet candidate, approximately in diameter.
(505448) 2013 SA100 | Introduction
In 2012, she won (along with David C. Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles) the Shaw Prize "for their discovery and characterization of trans-Neptunian bodies, an archeological treasure dating back to the formation of the solar system and the long-sought source of short period comets" and the Kavli Prize (shared with Jewitt and Michael E. Brown) "for discovering and characterizing the Kuiper Belt and its largest members, work that led to a major advance in the understanding of the history of our planetary system".
Jane Luu | Professional life
The project brought on JPL engineers and students from the California Institute of Technology and, later, Alan Stern and other scientists from the Pluto 350 project. While the project was initiated in 1992, the project's development phase was lengthy, spending nearly a decade in the proposal and funding stage. During planning, the mission was changed to include a Kuiper belt object flyby and re-christened the "Pluto Kuiper Express", after the discovery of numerous such objects beyond Neptune in the mid-to-late 1990s. NASA ultimately decided to cancel the mission in 2000, however, citing the project's expanding budget as the ultimate reason for the cancellation.
Pluto Kuiper Express | Introduction
Explorer I was an long by diameter cylinder weighing , compared to Sputnik 1, a sphere which weighed . Explorer 1 carried sensors which confirmed the existence of the Van Allen belts, a major scientific discovery at the time, while Sputnik 1 carried no scientific sensors. On 17 March 1958, the US orbited its second satellite, Vanguard 1, which was about the size of a grapefruit, and remains in a orbit .
Robotic spacecraft | History
The mission's main objectives would have been to map Pluto's surface and examine the double system's geology and geomorphology, as well as determining the composition of Pluto's atmosphere. This last task would have been considerably more difficult after the start of atmospheric freezing. Scientific equipment on board would have included visible light imaging systems, infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers, and an ultrastable oscillator (USO) for use in a radio occultation experiment.
Pluto Kuiper Express | History
Analysis of precovery observations in the visible spectrum between 2002 and 2007 show that it may be amongst the reddest objects in the Solar System, being more than 1.5 magnitudes fainter in the G (green) filtered versus the R (red) filtered images, which may offer some clues about its composition and origin "(also see color indices)". This is expected from a fairly small "orbitally unexcited" cold Classical Kuiper belt object as they are generally mostly red. The cold populations distance does not vary from the Sun very much so their surfaces are older, more irradiated, and covered in tholins. There is a chance it accreted in basically the same orbit it has today.
420356 Praamzius | Physical characteristics
A possible explanation is that Triton was part of a binary when it encountered Neptune. (Many KBOs are members of binaries. See below.) Ejection of the other member of the binary by Neptune could then explain Triton's capture. Triton is only 14% larger than Pluto, and spectral analysis of both worlds shows that their surfaces are largely composed of similar materials, such as methane and carbon monoxide. All this points to the conclusion that Triton was once a KBO that was captured by Neptune during its outward migration.
Kuiper belt | Triton
(15820) 1994 TB is a trans-Neptunian object residing in the Kuiper belt. It is in a 3:2 orbital resonance with Neptune, similar to Pluto. It was discovered on October 2, 1994, by David C. Jewitt and Jun Chen at the Mauna Kea Observatory, in Hawaii.
(15820) 1994 TB | Introduction
The data from this project will be used in combination with observations from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, Herschel Space Observatory, and previous Spitzer observations from the "Cores to Disks" Legacy program and from various Guaranteed Time and General Observer programs that studied star-forming regions within Gould's Belt.
Gould Belt Survey | Related projects
A subsequent flyby of Pluto was impossible, because the close approach of Titan meant it was also on a trajectory that slingshotted it upwards out of the ecliptic. Because no mission to Pluto was planned by any space agency at the time, it would be left unexplored by interplanetary spacecraft for years to come. Shortly after "Voyager 2"s flyby of Neptune and its findings at Triton in August 1989, scientists sought interest in a mission to Pluto and further studies for the existence of a Kuiper belt and Kuiper belt objects, potentially similar to Triton. All four outer planets were explored by "Voyager 2", launched in 1977, with close approaches to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Exploration of Pluto | Early mission proposals
is a trans-Neptunian object. More specifically, it is a non-resonant classical Kuiper belt object, also known as "cubewano". It orbits the Sun at a distance of 42.1–46.6 AU once every 295 years and 4 months (107,886 days; semi-major axis of 44.4 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.05 and an inclination of 4° with respect to the ecliptic. This makes it a typical member of the "cold population" among the cubewanos in the Kuiper belt. The body's observation arc begins with a precovery taken by the New Horizons KBO Search team with the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory on Hawaii, six week prior to its official first observation by Hubble.
2014 PN70 | Orbit and classification
Not only are the two populations in different orbits, the cold population also differs in color and albedo, being redder and brighter, has a larger fraction of binary objects, has a different size distribution, and lacks very large objects. The mass of the dynamically cold population is roughly 30 times less than the mass of the hot. The difference in colors may be a reflection of different compositions, which suggests they formed in different regions. The hot population is proposed to have formed near Neptune's original orbit and to have been scattered out during the migration of the giant planets.
Kuiper belt | Classical belt
was discovered on December 9, 2001 by David C. Jewitt, Scott S. Sheppard, and Jan Kleyna observing from the Mauna Kea Observatory.
(148975) 2001 XA255 | Discovery