Tuesday, February 28, 2023
What is the name of the region of space beyond the orbit of Neptune that contains many small, icy objects?
The Kuiper Belt is a region of space beyond the orbit of Neptune that contains many small, icy objects, such as dwarf planets, comets, and other small bodies. It is similar in some ways to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but it is much larger and farther away from the Sun. The Kuiper Belt is named after Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who first proposed its existence in 1951. The discovery of the first Kuiper Belt object, 1992 QB1, was announced in 1992, and since then thousands of other objects have been identified in the Kuiper Belt. One of the most famous objects in the Kuiper Belt is Pluto, which was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)