Kuiper Belt - Kuiper Belt
Kuiper Belt (46) Add new question
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Q: what do you know about Kuiper belt ?
| Option | Answer | Is Correct |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The area beyond Neptune, often called the outer solar system or the “trans-Neptunian region”, is still largely unexplored. It appears to consist overwhelmingly of small worlds (the largest having a diameter only a fifth that of the Earth and a mass far smaller than that of the Moon) composed mainly of rock and ice. The Kuiper belt, the region’s first formation, is a great ring of debris similar to the asteroid belt, but composed mainly of ice. It extends between 30 and 50 AU from the Sun. This region is thought to be the source of short-period comets, such as Halley’s comet. It is composed mainly of small solar system bodies, but many of the largest Kuiper belt objects, such as Quaoar, Varuna, (136108) 2003 EL6I, (136472) 2005 FY9 and Orcus may be reclassified as dwarf planets. There are estimated to be over 100,000 Kuiper belt objects with a diameter greater than 50km, but the total mass of the Kuiper belt is thought to be only a tenth or even a hundredth the mass of the Earth.Many Kuiper belt objects have multiple satellites and most have orbits that take them outside the plane of the ecliptic. The Kuiper belt can be roughly divided into the “resonant” belt and the “classical” belt. The resonant belt consists of objects with orbits linked to that of Neptune. The resonant belt actually begins within the orbit of Neptune itself. The classical belt consists of objects having no resonance with Neptune, and extends from roughly 39.4 AU to 47.7 AU. Members of the classical Kuiper belt are classified as Cubewanos, after the first of their kind to be discovered, (15760) 1992 QBI. |
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