Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In 1992, minor planet (15760) Albion was discovered, the first Kuiper belt object (KBO) since Pluto (in 1930) and Charon (in 1978). [16] Since its discovery, the number of known KBOs has increased to thousands, and more than 100,000 KBOs over 100 km (62 mi) in diameter are thought to exist. [ 17 ]
Launched on January 19, 2006, the New Horizons probe is the first human-made spacecraft to explore the Kuiper belt. This uncrewed mission flew by Pluto in July 2015. The mission was extended to observe a number of other Kuiper belt objects, including a close flyby of 486958 Arrokoth on New Year's Day, 2019. [68]
The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication differ), identified through its various designations (including temporary and permanent schemes), and the ...
Makemake (38.1–52.8 AU), although smaller than Pluto, is the largest known object in the classical Kuiper belt (that is, a Kuiper belt object not in a confirmed resonance with Neptune). Makemake is the brightest object in the Kuiper belt after Pluto. Discovered in 2005, it was officially named in 2009. [212]
1951 – Gerard Kuiper argues for an annular reservoir of comets between 40 and 100 astronomical units from the Sun having formed early in the Solar System's evolution, but he did not think that such a belt still existed today. [176] Decades later, this region was named after him, the Kuiper belt.
At their distance from the Sun, accretion was too slow to allow planets to form before the solar nebula dispersed, and thus the initial disc lacked enough mass density to consolidate into a planet. [67] The Kuiper belt lies between 30 and 55 AU from the Sun, while the farther scattered disc extends to over 100 AU, [47] and the distant Oort ...
Dwarf planets: Dwarf planets, other than Ceres, are plutoids that have elliptical orbits: [25] [26] [27] Ceres, 2.8 AU in the asteroid belt; Orcus 39.4 AU, Trans-Neptunian-Kuiper belt object; Pluto 39 AU, Kuiper belt (a planet until 2006) Haumea 43 AU, Kuiper belt; Makemake 45.8 AU, Kuiper belt; Eris 95.6 AU, Kuiper belt; Gonggong Scattered ...
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume, by a small margin, but is less massive than Eris.