Questions tagged [kuiper-belt]
Questions about the circumstellar disk orbiting in the outer Solar System, beyond the orbit of Neptune.
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Where does the Solar System end?
The Sun is roughly 4 light-years away from the closest star system, the Alpha Centauri system. The planets in our Solar System, however, aren't even close to that far away from the Sun. Where does our ...
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What caused this mysterious stellar occultation on July 10, 2017 from something ~100 km away from 486958 Arrokoth?
In 2017 a series of stellar occultations by asteroid 2014 MU69 "Ultima Thule" now officially named 486958 Arrokoth were timed in order to obtain better orbital information before the New ...
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Are any Pluto-sized objects remaining to be discovered in the Kuiper Belt?
An object approximately the same size as Pluto, Eris, was discovered only 8 years ago (in 2005). Are there any Pluto-sized objects remaining to be discovered, and if so, how far away from the Sun ...
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How does 2015 RR245 compare to the other KBOs predicting "Planet 9"?
2015 RR245 was recently announced, in a highly eccentric orbit in the KBO. From what I understand, the so called "Planet 9" was predicted because these objects tended to be pointed in a particular ...
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How can the orbit of a Kuiper Belt Object be differentiated from the transit of a rogue planet?
Related to the question "Are any Pluto-sized objects remaining to be discovered in the Kuiper Belt?" and the fact that most of the Kuiper Belt objects have very elliptical orbits, the question begs, ...
user8
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What is the farthest reported distance from observer from which a solar system body has occulted a star?
I originally wrote "...farthest distance from Earth..." but changed to "observer" in case the occultation was observed from a space telescope. It may not matter much but I didn't want to over-...
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Could the trajectories of non-periodic comets be used to infer properties of the 'ninth planet'?
Non-periodic comets are comets which have very long orbital periods (>200 years or more), spending most of their time in the outer solar system.
Planet X, recently revived by researchers at Caltech, ...
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Have Pluto or any of its moons been mapped?
I was looking over some of the data for the terrestrial planets, and noticed that Venus, despite its cloud covering, had been mapped by the Arecibo Observatory. Also that other planets such as mars, ...
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Could rocks from Earth have reached the Kuiper belt, or Neptune at least? If so, how?
This answer (currently edit 3) to How certain are we that we have not sent life to other planets/moons? begins:
First of all, rocks from Earth are probably just about everywhere in the Solar System. ...
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Is there an established distinction between a geyser and a cryovolcano in solar system bodies?
Is there an established distinction between a geyser and a cryovolcano in the context of cold solar-system bodies such as the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, or Kuiper belt objects (e.g. Pluto)?
Both can ...
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How and when will Sirius migrating towards the Sun trigger the movement of Kuiper belt objects into the solar system?
Currently the Sirius binary star system is moving towards the Sun at 5.5km/s for roughly the next 60 thousand years or so. At the end of those years it will be 7.8 light years away from the Sun and ...
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What observations will be done during the New Horizons flyby of Ultima Thule?
On New Year's Eve 2018, the New Horizons spacecraft will fly past Ultima Thule (2014 MU69) at about a third of the distance it flew by Pluto some years ago. So it should be able to get some detailed ...
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Strange speck of light in the picture sequence of the approach to 2014 Mu69 (Ultima Thule)
In the picture sequence which was taken by New Horizons during the approach to Ultima Thule on the 3rd of Dec there can be seen a speck of light in the lower left corner, not as bright as 2014 MU69 ...
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Is Planet Nine shepherding the Kuiper Belt?
Is it possible Planet Nine is shepherding the Kuiper Belt similar to the way Jupiter shepherds the asteroid belt?
I understand that very little is actually known about Planet Nine at this point, but ...
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Which measurements have shown that 2014 MU69 is red? (New Horizons' next target)
The recent NASA feature article New Horizons: Possible Clouds on Pluto, Next Target is Reddish
MU69 is actually the smallest KBO to have its color measured – and scientists have used that data to ...
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