Recently in class we’ve been talking about the outer portion of our Solar System. Beyond Neptune lies the Kuiper Belt, the disc-shaped region that begins at about 30 AUs and ends around 55 AUs. The Kuiper Belt is home to hundreds of thousands of icy bodies, an estimated trillion or more comets, and Pluto, according to NASA (I never realized Pluto was actually part of the Kuiper Belt).
The idea of the Kuiper Belt was proposed in 1943 by Kenneth Edgeworth who suggested that there were comets and larger bodies beyond Pluto. In 195, Gerard Kuiper predeicted there was a belt of icy objects beyond Neptune. While Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, the first “original” Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) was discovered in 1992 by Dave Jewitt and Jane Luu after 5 years of searching the skies. Using the University of Hawaii’s 2.2 m telescope, they found 1992 QB1, which they wanted to name “Smiley”. In 2002, Quaoar, the first large KBO hundreds of km in diameter was found by scientists at the Palomar Observatory (Quaoar was actually photographed in 1980 but wasn’t noticed). Sedna was discovered in 2004 using the same 48-inch Oschin telescope used at the Palomar Observatory. In 2005, Eris was discovered and in 2008, 2005FY9 (aka “Easterbunny”) was recognized as a “dwarf planet” and renamed Makemake. Two months later Haumea, or 2003EL61 or “Santa”, was classified as a “dwarf planet”.
