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It has been proposed that Pluto may have formed as a result of the agglomeration of numerous comets and Kuiper-belt objects. [167] [168] Though Pluto is the largest Kuiper belt object discovered, [130] Neptune's moon Triton, which is larger than Pluto, is similar to it both geologically and atmospherically, and is thought to be a captured ...
[a] Originally considered a planet, Pluto's status as part of the Kuiper belt caused it to be reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. It is compositionally similar to many other objects of the Kuiper belt, and its orbital period is characteristic of a class of KBOs, known as "plutinos," that share the same 2:3 resonance with Neptune.
Other objects, such as 28978 Ixion (discovered in 2001) and 20000 Varuna (discovered in 2000) measure roughly 500 km across. [1] This has led gradually to the acceptance of Pluto as the largest member of the Kuiper belt. [citation needed] The brightest known dwarf planets and other KBOs (with absolute magnitudes < 4.0) are:
Kuiper belt (>1,000) (scale in AU; epoch as of January 2015; # of objects in parentheses) These Solar System minor planets are the furthest from the Sun as of December 2021. The objects have been categorized by their approximate current distance from the Sun, and not by the calculated aphelion of their orbit. The list changes over time because ...
Understanding that could in turn help explain how the objects in the Kuiper Belt came to be. It could even shed light on questions about the beginnings of solar system.
The listed objects currently include most objects in the asteroid belt and moons of the giant planets in this size range, but many newly discovered objects in the outer Solar System are missing, such as those included in the following reference. [58] Asteroid spectral types are mostly Tholen, but some might be SMASS.
These were the closest images taken of a Kuiper belt object besides Pluto and Arrokoth as of February 2018. [ 192 ] [ 193 ] The dwarf planet Haumea was observed from afar by the New Horizons spacecraft in October 2007, January 2017, and May 2020, from distances of 49 AU, 59 AU, and 63 AU, respectively.
(307261) 2002 MS 4 (provisional designation 2002 MS 4) is a large trans-Neptunian object in the Kuiper belt, which is a region of icy planetesimals beyond Neptune.It was discovered on 18 June 2002 by Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown during their search for bright, Pluto-sized Kuiper belt objects at Palomar Observatory.