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.
Discovery
Kuiper belt
Kuiper belt | Discovery
David Jewitt Gerard Kuiper David Jewitt David Jewitt and Jane Luu.
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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, 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
Observation ruled out this hypothesis.
Kuiper belt | Hypotheses
By 2018, over 2000 Kuiper belts objects were discovered.
(181708) 1993 FW | Introduction
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
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
The number of objects is inversely proportional to some power of the diameter "D": Early estimates that were based on measurements of the apparent magnitude distribution found a value of q = 4 ±0.5, which implied that there are 8 (=2) times more objects in the 100–200 km range than in the 200–400 km range. Recent research has revealed that the size distributions of the hot classical and cold classical objects have differing slopes. The slope for the hot objects is q = 5.3 at large diameters and q = 2.0 at small diameters with the change in slope at 110 km.
Kuiper belt | Mass and size distribution
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
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 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
is a classical Kuiper belt object (cubewano) belonging to the hot population. Its size estimated to lie between 150 and 450 km based on a range of plausible albedos. The object has a large light curve amplitude of about 0.85, which indicates that it has an extremely elongated shape or is a contact binary. In the former case the density of is estimated at about 0.86 g/cm and its axis ratios at 0.55 and 0.41. If is a contact binary, which is actually more likely, the density is estimated at about 2.67 g/cm. In the latter case, the components are also thought to be unequal in size with the mass ratio of about 0.3 and axis ratios of about 0.8 and 0.5, respectively, for the primary and secondary components.
2003 SQ317 | Physical properties
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
, 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
, 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
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)
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
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
, 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
, 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
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
, 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
The discovery of these large KBOs in orbits similar to Pluto's led many to conclude that, aside from its relative size, Pluto was not particularly different from other members of the Kuiper belt. Not only are these objects similar to Pluto in size, but many also have satellites, and are of similar composition (methane and carbon monoxide have been found both on Pluto and on the largest KBOs). Thus, just as Ceres was considered a planet before the discovery of its fellow asteroids, some began to suggest that Pluto might also be reclassified. The issue was brought to a head by the discovery of Eris, an object in the scattered disc far beyond the Kuiper belt, that is now known to be 27% more massive than Pluto.
Kuiper belt | Pluto
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
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
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
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
, 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
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
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
Neptune's current influence is too weak to explain such a massive "vacuuming", and the extent of mass loss by collisional grinding is limited by the presence of loosely bound binaries in the cold disk, which are likely to be disrupted in collisions. Instead of forming from the collisions of smaller planetesimals, the larger object may have formed directly from the collapse of clouds of pebbles. The size distributions of the Kuiper belt objects follow a number of power laws. A power law describes the relationship between "N"("D") (the number of objects of diameter greater than "D") and "D", and is referred to as brightness slope.
Kuiper belt | Mass and size distribution
, 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
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
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
(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
, 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
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
The scattered disc was created when Neptune migrated outward into the proto-Kuiper belt, which at the time was much closer to the Sun, and left in its wake a population of dynamically stable objects that could never be affected by its orbit (the Kuiper belt proper), and a population whose perihelia are close enough that Neptune can still disturb them as it travels around the Sun (the scattered disc). Because the scattered disc is dynamically active and the Kuiper belt relatively dynamically stable, the scattered disc is now seen as the most likely point of origin for periodic comets.
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
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
The first known collisional family in the classical Kuiper belt—a group of objects thought to be remnants from the breakup of a single body—is the Haumea family. It includes Haumea, its moons, and seven smaller bodies. The objects not only follow similar orbits but also share similar physical characteristics. Unlike many other KBO their surface contains large amounts of ice (HO) and no or very little tholins. The surface composition is inferred from their neutral (as opposed to red) colour and deep absorption at 1.5 and 2. μm in infrared spectrum. Several other collisional families might reside in the classical Kuiper belt.
Classical Kuiper belt object | Families
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 small total mass of the dynamically cold population presents some problems for models of the Solar System's formation because a sizable mass is required for accretion of KBOs larger than in diameter. If the cold classical Kuiper belt had always had its current low density, these large objects simply could not have formed by the collision and mergers of smaller planetesimals. Moreover, the eccentricity and inclination of current orbits makes the encounters quite "violent" resulting in destruction rather than accretion. The removal of a large fraction of the mass of the dynamically cold population is thought to be unlikely.
Kuiper belt | Mass and size distribution
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
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
The slope for the cold objects is q = 8.2 at large diameters and q = 2.9 at small diameters with a change in slope at 140 km. The size distributions of the scattering objects, the plutinos, and the Neptune trojans have slopes similar to the other dynamically hot populations, but may instead have a divot, a sharp decrease in the number of objects below a specific size. This divot is hypothesized to be due to either the collisional evolution of the population, or to be due to the population having formed with no objects below this size, with the smaller objects being fragments of the original objects.
Kuiper belt | Mass and size distribution
The Kuiper belt (), occasionally called the Edgeworth–Kuiper belt, is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger – 20 times as wide and 20–200 times as massive. Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies or remnants from when the Solar System formed. While many asteroids are composed primarily of rock and metal, most Kuiper belt objects are composed largely of frozen volatiles (termed "ices"), such as methane, ammonia and water.
Kuiper belt | Introduction
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
66652 Borasisi, or as a binary (66652) Borasisi-Pabu, is a binary classical Kuiper belt object. It was discovered in September 1999 by Chad Trujillo, Jane X. Luu and David C. Jewitt and identified as a binary in 2003 by K. Noll and colleagues using the Hubble Telescope.
66652 Borasisi | Introduction
Objects identified as cubewanos include: 136108 Haumea was provisionally listed as a cubewano by the Minor Planet Center in 2006, but was later found to be in a resonant orbit.
Classical Kuiper belt object | Introduction
, 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
420356 Praamzius, provisional designation , is a trans-Neptunian object from the classical Kuiper belt, located in the outermost region of the Solar System, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 23 January 2012, by astronomers Kazimieras Černis and Richard Boyle with the Vatican's VATT at Mount Graham Observatory in Arizona, United States. The cold classical Kuiper belt object is a weak dwarf planet candidate and possibly very red in color. It was named after the chief god Praamžius from Lithuanian mythology.
420356 Praamzius | Introduction
This suggested that their surfaces were composed of a wide range of compounds, from dirty ices to hydrocarbons. This diversity was startling, as astronomers had expected KBOs to be uniformly dark, having lost most of the volatile ices from their surfaces to the effects of cosmic rays. Various solutions were suggested for this discrepancy, including resurfacing by impacts or outgassing. Jewitt and Luu's spectral analysis of the known Kuiper belt objects in 2001 found that the variation in color was too extreme to be easily explained by random impacts. The radiation from the Sun is thought to have chemically altered methane on the surface of KBOs, producing products such as tholins.
Kuiper belt | Composition
, 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
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
A classical Kuiper belt object, also called a cubewano ( "QB1-o"), is a low-eccentricity Kuiper belt object (KBO) that orbits beyond Neptune and is not controlled by an orbital resonance with Neptune. Cubewanos have orbits with semi-major axes in the 40–50 AU range and, unlike Pluto, do not cross Neptune's orbit. That is, they have low-eccentricity and sometimes low-inclination orbits like the classical planets. The name "cubewano" derives from the first trans-Neptunian object (TNO) found after Pluto and Charon, 15760 Albion, which until January 2018 had only had the provisional designation . Similar objects found later were often called "QB1-o's", or "cubewanos", after this object, though the term "classical" is much more frequently used in the scientific literature.
Classical Kuiper belt object | 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
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
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
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
, 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
The Kuiper belt is home to three officially recognized dwarf planets: Pluto, Haumea and Makemake. Some of the Solar System's moons, such as Neptune's Triton and Saturn's Phoebe, may have originated in the region. The Kuiper belt was named after Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper, though he did not predict its existence. In 1992, minor planet (15760) Albion was discovered, the first Kuiper belt object (KBO) since Pluto and Charon. Since its discovery, the number of known KBOs has increased to thousands, and more than 100,000 KBOs over in diameter are thought to exist. The Kuiper belt was initially thought to be the main repository for periodic comets, those with orbits lasting less than 200 years.
Kuiper belt | 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
Binaries are less common on high-inclination orbits and their components typically differ in brightness. This correlation, together with the differences in colour, support further the suggestion that the currently observed classical objects belong to at least two different overlapping populations, with different physical properties and orbital history.
Classical Kuiper belt object | Cold and hot populations: physical characteristics
Similar processes have been inferred in the debris disks around Fomalhaut and AU Microscopii.
Beta Pictoris | Planetesimal belts
, 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
While none have been detected to date, by analogy with the solar system, their presence is likely, since evidence for analogues of the solar system's asteroid belt, Kuiper belt, and terrestrial planets have been found.
HD 113766 | Icy accretion belts
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
However, this evolution of Neptune's orbit fails to account for some of the characteristics of the orbital distribution. It predicts a greater average eccentricity in classical Kuiper belt object orbits than is observed (0.10–0.13 versus 0.07) and it does not produce enough higher-inclination objects. It also cannot explain the apparent complete absence of gray objects in the cold population, although it has been suggested that color differences arise in part from surface evolution processes rather than entirely from differences in primordial composition.
Nice model | Formation of the Kuiper belt
Between the 2:3 and 1:2 resonances with Neptune, at approximately 42–48 AU, the gravitational interactions with Neptune occur over an extended timescale, and objects can exist with their orbits essentially unaltered. This region is known as the classical Kuiper belt, and its members comprise roughly two thirds of KBOs observed to date. Because the first modern KBO discovered (Albion, but long called (15760) 1992 QB), is considered the prototype of this group, classical KBOs are often referred to as cubewanos ("Q-B-1-os"). The guidelines established by the IAU demand that classical KBOs be given names of mythological beings associated with creation.
Kuiper belt | Classical belt
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
Different substances absorb light at different wavelengths, and when the spectrum for a specific object is unravelled, dark lines (called absorption lines) appear where the substances within it have absorbed that particular wavelength of light. Every element or compound has its own unique spectroscopic signature, and by reading an object's full spectral "fingerprint", astronomers can determine its composition. Analysis indicates that Kuiper belt objects are composed of a mixture of rock and a variety of ices such as water, methane, and ammonia. The temperature of the belt is only about 50 K, so many compounds that would be gaseous closer to the Sun remain solid.
Kuiper belt | Composition
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
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
, 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
Many Kuiper belt objects have multiple satellites, and most have orbits that take them outside the plane of the ecliptic. The Kuiper belt can be roughly divided into the "classical" belt and the resonances. Resonances are orbits linked to that of Neptune (e.g. twice for every three Neptune orbits, or once for every two). The first resonance begins within the orbit of Neptune itself. The classical belt consists of objects having no resonance with Neptune, and extends from roughly 39.4 AU to 47.7 AU. Members of the classical Kuiper belt are classified as cubewanos, after the first of their kind to be discovered, 15760 Albion (which previously had the provisional designation 1992 QB), and are still in near primordial, low-eccentricity orbits.
Solar System | Kuiper belt
" is a classical Kuiper belt object: Its orbit is not controlled by an orbital resonance with Neptune, similar to 15760 Albion, but with a much greater orbital eccentricity and inclination. It completes one orbit around the Sun in just over 247 Earth years, at an average distance of about 44 AU. It came to perihelion around 1868, and to aphelion in 2015. It is currently about 50.7 AU from the Sun, and will again return to perihelion around 2163.
(386723) 2009 YE7 | Classification
Eventually, the orbits shifted to the point where Jupiter and Saturn reached an exact 1:2 resonance; Jupiter orbited the Sun twice for every one Saturn orbit. The gravitational repercussions of such a resonance ultimately destabilized the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, causing them to be scattered outward onto high-eccentricity orbits that crossed the primordial planetesimal disc.
Kuiper belt | Origin
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
Hypothetical mechanisms for the formation of these larger bodies include the gravitational collapse of clouds of pebbles concentrated between eddies in a turbulent protoplanetary disk or in streaming instabilities. These collapsing clouds may fragment, forming binaries. Modern computer simulations show the Kuiper belt to have been strongly influenced by Jupiter and Neptune, and also suggest that neither Uranus nor Neptune could have formed in their present positions, because too little primordial matter existed at that range to produce objects of such high mass. Instead, these planets are estimated to have formed closer to Jupiter. Scattering of planetesimals early in the Solar System's history would have led to migration of the orbits of the giant planets: Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune drifted outwards, whereas Jupiter drifted inwards.
Kuiper belt | Origin
Astronomers sometimes use the alternative name Edgeworth–Kuiper belt to credit Edgeworth, and KBOs are occasionally referred to as EKOs. Brian G. Marsden claims that neither deserves true credit: "Neither Edgeworth nor Kuiper wrote about anything remotely like what we are now seeing, but Fred Whipple did". David Jewitt comments: "If anything ... Fernández most nearly deserves the credit for predicting the Kuiper Belt." KBOs are sometimes called "kuiperoids", a name suggested by Clyde Tombaugh. The term "trans-Neptunian object" (TNO) is recommended for objects in the belt by several scientific groups because the term is less controversial than all others—it is not an exact synonym though, as TNOs include all objects orbiting the Sun past the orbit of Neptune, not just those in the Kuiper belt.
Kuiper belt | Name
The vast majority of KBOs (more than two-thirds) have inclinations of less than 5° and eccentricities of less than 0.1 . Their semi-major axes show a preference for the middle of the main belt; arguably, smaller objects close to the limiting resonances have been either captured into resonance or have their orbits modified by Neptune. The 'hot' and 'cold' populations are strikingly different: more than 30% of all cubewanos are in low inclination, near-circular orbits. The parameters of the plutinos’ orbits are more evenly distributed, with a local maximum in moderate eccentricities in 0.15–0.2 range, and low inclinations 5–10°. See also the comparison with scattered disk objects.
Classical Kuiper belt object | Distribution
Studies since the mid-1990s have shown that the belt is dynamically stable and that comets' true place of origin is the scattered disc, a dynamically active zone created by the outward motion of Neptune 4.5 billion years ago; scattered disc objects such as Eris have extremely eccentric orbits that take them as far as 100 AU from the Sun. The Kuiper belt is distinct from the theoretical Oort cloud, which is a thousand times more distant and is mostly spherical. The objects within the Kuiper belt, together with the members of the scattered disc and any potential Hills cloud or Oort cloud objects, are collectively referred to as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs).
Kuiper belt | 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
, 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
(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
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
A large number of Pluto-massed objects would requires the Kuiper belt's size distribution to have multiple deviations from a constant slope.
Jumping-Jupiter scenario | Kuiper belt
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
The classical Kuiper belt appears to be a composite of two separate populations. The first, known as the "dynamically cold" population, has orbits much like the planets; nearly circular, with an orbital eccentricity of less than 0.1, and with relatively low inclinations up to about 10° (they lie close to the plane of the Solar System rather than at an angle). The cold population also contain a concentration of objects, referred to as the kernel, with semi-major axes at 44–44.5 AU. The second, the "dynamically hot" population, has orbits much more inclined to the ecliptic, by up to 30°. The two populations have been named this way not because of any major difference in temperature, but from analogy to particles in a gas, which increase their relative velocity as they become heated up.
Kuiper belt | Classical belt
Here is a very generic list of classical Kuiper belt objects. , there are about 779 objects with and .
Classical Kuiper belt object | List
An alternative classification, introduced by B. Gladman, B. Marsden and C. van Laerhoven in 2007, uses a 10-million-year orbit integration instead of the Tisserand's parameter. Classical objects are defined as not resonant and not being currently scattered by Neptune. Formally, this definition includes as "classical" all objects with their "current" orbits that Unlike other schemes, this definition includes the objects with major semi-axis less than 39.4 AU (2:3 resonance)—termed inner classical belt, or more than 48.7 (1:2 resonance) – termed outer classical belt, and reserves the term main classical belt for the orbits between these two resonances.
Classical Kuiper belt object | SSBN07 classification
This claim has been disputed with the argument that Pluto's escape velocity is too high for this to happen. It has been proposed that Pluto may have formed as a result of the agglomeration of numerous comets and Kuiper-belt objects. Though Pluto is the largest Kuiper belt object discovered, Neptune's moon Triton, which is slightly larger than Pluto, is similar to it both geologically and atmospherically, and is thought to be a captured Kuiper belt object. Eris (see above) is about the same size as Pluto (though more massive) but is not strictly considered a member of the Kuiper belt population.
Pluto | Origin
At its fullest extent (but excluding the scattered disc), including its outlying regions, the Kuiper belt stretches from roughly 30–55 AU. The main body of the belt is generally accepted to extend from the 2:3 mean-motion resonance (see below) at 39.5 AU to the 1:2 resonance at roughly 48 AU. The Kuiper belt is quite thick, with the main concentration extending as much as ten degrees outside the ecliptic plane and a more diffuse distribution of objects extending several times farther. Overall it more resembles a torus or doughnut than a belt. Its mean position is inclined to the ecliptic by 1.86 degrees.
Kuiper belt | Structure
, also written as (95625) 2002 GX32, is a trans-Neptunian object that resides in the Kuiper belt. It has a 3:7 resonance with Neptune. It was discovered on April 8, 2002 by Marc W. Buie, Amy B. Jordan, and James L. Elliot. It came to perihelion in 1997. Assuming a generic TNO albedo of 0.09, it is about 153 km in diameter.
(95625) 2002 GX32 | 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
Hence, it was thought to be one of the largest Kuiper belt objects discovered due to its high intrinsic brightness. Under the assumption of a low albedo, it was presumed to have a diameter around , which would make it larger than the dwarf planet and comparable in size to Charon. Subsequent observations of Ixion with the La Silla Observatory's MPG/ESO telescope along with the European Southern Observatory's Astrovirtel in August 2001 concluded a similar size around , though under the former assumption of a low albedo. In 2002, astronomers of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy measured Ixion's thermal emission at millimeter wavelengths with the IRAM 30m telescope and obtained an albedo of 0.09, corresponding to a diameter of , consistent with previous assumptions of Ixion's size and albedo.
28978 Ixion | Size and brightness
, 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
, 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
He also showed that continued transpression or compression could result in extrusion of the core of the belt, parallel to its length. "Transtension", with pull apart basins in zones of oblique extension, was a natural compliment.
W. Brian Harland | Collision Zones
Their dynamic orbits occasionally force them into the inner Solar System, first becoming centaurs, and then short-period comets. According to the Minor Planet Center, which officially catalogues all trans-Neptunian objects, a KBO, strictly speaking, is any object that orbits exclusively within the defined Kuiper belt region regardless of origin or composition. Objects found outside the belt are classed as scattered objects. In some scientific circles the term "Kuiper belt object" has become synonymous with any icy minor planet native to the outer Solar System assumed to have been part of that initial class, even if its orbit during the bulk of Solar System history has been beyond the Kuiper belt (e.g.
Kuiper belt | Scattered objects