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KUIPER BELT OBJECTS
Rosemary R.
What Is The Kuiper Belt?
The Kuiper Belt is a disc-shaped region of icy objects beyond the orbit of Neptune.
Found by Gerard Kuiper It contains debris from
the early creation of the solar system.
It contains short-period comets.
Pluto
It was named by an 11-year-old girl who suggested the name to her grandfather
About 2/3 of the diameter of Earth’s moon 248-year-long elliptical orbit Can travel as far as 49.3 AUs from the Sun A thin atmosphere is created around it when it gets
close to the sun in its orbit because its surface ices begin to thaw
It has 4 moons, but the largest is named Charon. Charon is so large that sometimes they are referred to as a double dwarf planet system.
Pluto and its four moons
Eris
Discovered in January 2005 by Mike Brown, Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz
Named after the Greek goddess of discord and strife Eris was what provoked the debate on whether or not
Pluto should be classified as a planet. Since Eris is slightly bigger than Pluto, they were both classified as dwarf planets
Largest dwarf planet in the solar system
Has a diameter between 2,400 and 3,000 kilometers
Has an orbital period of 556.7 years It has one satellite named Dysnomia
Object 1993 SC
One of the brightest Kuiper Belt objects found so far
34 AU from the Sun May travel as far as
48 AU (because of its eccentricity) 300 kilometer diameter (186 miles) About a quarter of the size of Charon
Quaoar
It is the largest object that has been found in the solar system since the discovery of Pluto
It is about 42 AU away from us on Earth It has a nearly circular orbit About 1250 kilometers in
diameter Discovered in 2002 Made of rock and ice
Orcus
680 mile diameter (about half the size of Pluto) Discovered in February 2004 by Chad Trujillo,
Mike Brown, and David Rabinowitz Orbital distance varies from 30.9 to 48.1 AUs Opposite of Pluto in its orbit
but has the same orbital period Considered to be a “plutino”
because it goes around the sun twice for every three times Neptune does
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