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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. [3] These surveys will provide data that will help determine answers to these questions.
A classical Kuiper belt object, also called a cubewano (/ ˌ k juː b iː ˈ w ʌ n oʊ / "QB1-o"), [a] 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 ...
The asteroid and comet belts orbit the Sun from the inner rocky planets into outer parts of the Solar System, interstellar space. [16] [17] [18] An astronomical unit, or AU, is the distance from Earth to the Sun, which is approximately 150 billion meters (93 million miles). [19]
The Kuiper belt is a great ring of debris similar to the asteroid belt, but consisting mainly of objects composed primarily of ice. [195] It extends between 30 and 50 AU from the Sun. It is composed mainly of small Solar System bodies, although the largest few are probably large enough to be dwarf planets. [ 196 ]
An artist's impression of the Oort cloud and the Kuiper belt (inset); the sizes of objects are over-scaled for visibility. The Oort cloud ( / ɔːr t , ʊər t / ), [ 1 ] sometimes called the Öpik–Oort cloud , [ 2 ] is theorized to be a vast cloud of icy planetesimals surrounding the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 AU (0.03 to ...
486958 Arrokoth (provisional designation 2014 MU 69; formerly nicknamed Ultima Thule [a]) is a trans-Neptunian object located in the Kuiper belt.Arrokoth became the farthest and most primitive object in the Solar System visited by a spacecraft when the NASA space probe New Horizons conducted a flyby on 1 January 2019.
As of 2011, surveys of the Kuiper belt to magnitude 21 were nearly complete and any remaining Pluto-sized objects are expected to be beyond 100 AU from the Sun. [163] Like other Kuiper-belt objects (KBOs), Pluto shares features with comets; for example, the solar wind is gradually blowing Pluto's surface into space. [164]
[19] [20] Studies of the structure of the Kuiper belt and of anomalous materials within it suggest that the Sun formed within a cluster of between 1,000 and 10,000 stars with a diameter of between 6.5 and 19.5 light years and a collective mass of 3,000 M ☉. This cluster began to break apart between 135 million and 535 million years after ...