What is the Kuiper Belt?

With all the findings in the field of space exploration, by now you must be aware that there are many more objects in outer space than just the Sun and the planets of the Solar System. When considering these 'other' objects, the 'Kuiper Belt' is a region in outer space which has created a lot of excitement in space exploration. Therefore, let's find out what is significant about this 'Kuiper Belt'.

According to the definition, the Kuiper Belt is the region between Neptune's orbit which lies at 30AU from the

 Sun, and 50AU from the Sun. If you are new to measurements using AU, it is short for Astronomical Units. One Astronomical Unit is equal to 149 598 000 kilometres.

The Kuiper Belt consists of many objects, which are not exactly asteroids, similar to those which exist between Mars and Jupiter, although there are some similarities as well.

The existence of this belt was suggested by astronomers Frederick C. Leonard in 1930, and Kenneth E. Edgeworth in 1943. In 1951 Gerard Kuiper brought in a concept which says that the belt gave birth to the short period comets. For your information, short period comets are comets which have an orbital period of less than 200 years.

Further studies about objects in the belt were done by Al G. W. Cameron in 1962, Fred L. Whipple in 1964, and Julio Fernandez in 1980.

The belt was given the particular name after Kuiper, after the discovery of (15760) 1992 QB. Apart from that, this is also called Edgeworth-Kuiper belt to credit Edgeworth.

Have you heard of the term, 'Trans Neptunian Object' (TNO)? If not, a TNO is generally any object that orbits the Sun at a greater distance than Neptune, and the objects within the Kuiper Belt also fall into this category.

Therefore, in general terms, the objects in the Kuiper Belt are referred to as Trans Neptunian Objects.

Surely you may like to hear about some discoveries under this subject. Although the concept was presented in 1930 and 1943, objects from the Kuiper Belt were discovered much later. By now, over eight hundred objects have been discovered. Every year, larger Kuiper Belt Objects are found; objects larger than the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt and Pluto too have been discovered.

Pluto is very special when we talk about Kuiper Belt Objects. You may remember that since the definition of a planet was declared in August 24, 2006, Pluto is no longer considered as a planet.

In fact from the beginning, Pluto was an object from the Kuiper Belt. But, after the discovery of Eris which is the largest Kuiper Belt object found recently, the International Astronomical Union thought of redefining the term 'planet' and it is important to know that Eris was even larger than Pluto.

According to this new definition, large objects from the Kuiper Belt cannot be considered as planets, but they can be considered as 'dwarf planets'. When we talk about Kuiper Belt objects, a lot of scientific terms and mathematics come in to play.

Therefore, we will just give this brief idea about the Kuiper Belt which is an interesting region just beyond our solar system. Why not get a hold of some sources of information and go in to more specific aspects of these objects?

Aravinda Dassanayake

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