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The Kuiper belt is distinct from the hypothesized Oort cloud, which is believed to be a thousand times more distant and 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). [21]
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 3.2 light-years). [3] [note 1] [4] The concept of such a cloud was proposed in 1950 by the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, in whose ...
Kuiper belt large belt, 43 to 64.5 AU; Scattered disc small group, 21.5 to 215 AU; Sednoid (inner Oort cloud objects) small group of four or more, high elliptical orbits, 47.8 to 80 AU; Extreme trans-Neptunian objects 150 to 250 AU; Hills cloud a large hypothetical circumstellar disc
There are about 4,000 known comets in our Solar System so far and most of them come from beyond Pluto, in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. One of such, called C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, will make ...
The existence of planets beyond Neptune, ranging from less than an Earth mass up to a brown dwarf has been often postulated [37] [38] for different theoretical reasons to explain several observed or speculated features of the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud.
However, the difference between the Kuiper belt and the scattered disc is not clear-cut, and many astronomers see the scattered disc not as a separate population but as an outward region of the Kuiper belt. Another term used is "scattered Kuiper-belt object" (or SKBO) for bodies of the scattered disc. [23]
The Kuiper belt, scattered disk, and Oort cloud are three conventional divisions of this volume of space. [1] [nb 1] As of April 2022, the catalog of minor planets contains 901 numbered TNOs. In addition, there are more than 3,000 unnumbered TNOs, which have been observed since 1993. [3] [4] [5]
Compositional differences among asteroids arise from how far from the sun they formed. ... "But there are also many bodies stored in the Kuiper Belt and in the Oort Cloud (regions far beyond the ...