The Kuiper Belt

Astronomy 1010

December 4th, 2017

as the Kuiper Belt, this cold expanse holds an innumerable number of objects that are remnants

of the early solar system. To start our assignment of placing the Kuiper Belt in our class's model

solar system, we wanted to first figure out the scale size of the objects in the Kuiper Belt and

work backwards from that number to find the distance from the sun and diameter of the scale

Kuiper Belt. In order to find the size of the objects in our scale model, we first had to find the

real size of the objects in the actual solar system. After some research, we were able to conclude

that the size of the objects in the Kuiper Belt are approximately 2000 km in diameter. The next

step was to calculate the scale factor, which we found by taking the scale model of the sun, 14

cm (0.00014 km) in diameter, and dividing it by the size of the actual sun, 1,391,900 km in

diameter. This calculation yielded the scale factor of 1.00582 e-10; this is calculated to be

0.0000000000100582 cm, which seems appropriate given the size of the scale model.

Now that we have the factor that we will base our scale model on, we can take the

diameter of the objects in the Kuiper Belt and multiply them by our scale factor. It is important to

note that the sizes of these objects vary, but for the sake of simplicity and coherence, we will take

the actual size of 2000 km in diameter. To calculate the scale size of this object we take 2000 km

and multiply it by the scale factor of 1.00582 e-10 cm, and concluded that the scale diameter of

our Kuiper Belt object will be 0.02 cm (0.0000002 km). The final quantity to calculate is the

scale distance of the Kuiper Belt from the sun so we can place the object in the correct spot. To

do this, we simply take the real distance of the sun to the Kuiper Belt, which is 4499900000 km,
and multiply it by our scale factor like we did for the sizes in the previous calculations. This

calculation expresses that, in our model, the scale distance from the sun to the Kuiper Belt is

0.4526 km or 1484 feet from the model sun. Now that we have the calculations, we simply need

to place the object. After some considerations, we decided that the appropriate location based on

the scale model would be in the S.T.E.M. center, Ray Morris Hall, next to room 139.

As far as the history of the Kuiper Belt goes, we humans only discovered it recently, and

there is much more information to be explored on the subject. In 1943, astronomer Kenneth

Edgeworth had suggested comets and larger bodies might exist beyond Neptune. In 1951,

astronomer Gerard Kuiper predicted the existence of a belt of icy objects that was later named

after him. Despite its massive size, the Kuiper Belt wasn't officially discovered until 1992 by

scientists Dave Jewitt and Jane Luu. The belt is similar to the asteroid belt found between Mars

and Jupiter, although the objects in the Kuiper Belt are icier rather than rocky.

Scientists estimate that thousands of bodies fairly large in diameter travel around the sun

within this belt, along with trillions of smaller objects, many of which are short-period comets.

Because Kuiper Belt objects are so far away, their sizes can be difficult to measure. The

calculated diameter of one of these objects depends on assumptions about how reflective the

object's surface is. With infrared observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists were

able to determine most of the largest Kuiper Belt objects' sizes. The region also contains several

dwarf planets objects that are too large to be considered asteroids and yet not qualifying as

planets because they're too small, on an odd orbit, and don't clear out their orbits the way the

confirmed eight planets do. The majority of the objects in the Kuiper Belt lie between 42 and 48
times Earth's distance from the sun. The orbit of objects in this region remain stable for the most

part.

The Kuiper Belt was made out of the leftovers from the creation of the solar system.

When the solar system formed, much of the gas, dust and rocks pulled together to form the sun

and planets. The planets then cleared most of the remaining debris into the sun or out of the solar

system. But bodies farther out remained safer from gravitational tugs of planets like Jupiter, and

so managed to stay put as they slowly orbited the sun. The Kuiper Belt and the more distant Oort

Cloud contain the leftover remnants from the beginning of our solar system.

In order to catch a better glimpse of these leftovers from the birth of the solar system,

NASA launched the New Horizons mission. This spacecraft reached Pluto in 2015 and continued

on with a goal of getting a closer look at many Kuiper Belt objects. On January 1, 2019 the

spacecraft will see Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69. "2014 MU69 is a great choice because it is

just the kind of ancient Kuiper Belt object, formed where it orbits now, that the Decadal Survey

desired us to fly by," New Horizons investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute

in Boulder, Colorado said.

Another reason scientists are so interested in exploring the Kuiper Belt is a theory of a

possible additional planet beyond Neptune. Planet Nine is a hypothetical planet thought to orbit

the sun at a distance that is 20 times farther out than the orbit of Neptune. The proposed planet's

orbit is about 600 times farther from the sun than the Earth's orbit is from the sun. Scientists have

not actually witnessed Planet Nine directly. Its existence was inferred by its gravitational effects

on other objects also found in the Kuiper Belt. Scientists Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin at
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena wrote about the evidence for Planet Nine in a

study published in the Astronomical Journal. The research is based on mathematical models and

computer simulations using the studied patterns of six other smaller Kuiper Belt objects with

orbits that aligned in a similar matter.

Exploration and facts about the Kuiper Belt have been found out very recently on the

broad scale of space exploration, and in the years to come the public can expect to learn much

more about this icy expanse. It is very much so still a mystery, but hopefully projects like the

New Horizons mission will give us the answers that we need.

Contributor, Nola Taylor Redd [Link]. Kuiper Belt Objects: Facts about the Kuiper Belt &

hiuhihiiKBOs. [Link], [Link]/[Link].

Kuiper Belt - In Depth | Planets - NASA Solar System Exploration. NASA, NASA,

[Link]/planets/kbos/indepth.

Kuiper Belt, [Link]/~jewitt/[Link].

The Universe in Prospective | Primax Studio. Scale of the Universe, [Link]/.

Andrew Henley- Model Building and Placement