Where do comets come from? Shorter loops indicate less-inclined orbits. The Webb team expects the telescope's optical performance will be able to meet or exceed the science goals the observatory was built to achieve. The Oort Cloud is a vast shell of billions of comets. Most of the classical bodies belong to this population. Much about the dark and distant Kuiper belt region was a mystery, until 1992. The revelations about the Kuiper Belt further prove that the IAU was out of line with their demotion of Pluto, as a massive part of their argument was based around the hard science of the Kuiper belt being immutable and universal regarding the creation of planets and solar systems prohibiting anything within the Kuiper area from being considered a real planet. The sixth planet ever discovered was Earth, 400 years ago. Researchers will use Webb to observe 17 actively forming planetary systems. This distant region is probably populated with hundreds of thousands of icy bodies larger than 100 km (62 miles) across and an estimated trillion or more comets. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. At the time, much was still unknown about it. It moves in a nearly circular orbit in the plane of the planetary system at a distance from the Sun of about 44 AU (6.6 billion km [4.1 billion miles]). MMmmmm something doesnt seem right there. It is believed that the Kuiper Belt should have 30 times the mass of Earth, but it doesn't. It is located in the outer solar system beyond the orbit of Neptune. We asked him to help us explain this unusual region of our solar system. why would something thats been there for 5bn years be gone in the next 100mil? The inset diagram compares Pluto's orbit with a Kuiper Belt binary object called 1998 WW31. Readers deserve to be presented with both sides of this issue. Asteroids, comets, Kuiper Belt Objectsall kinds of small bodies of rock, metal and ice are in constant motion as they orbit the Sun. no). is a comet-rich area which is situated between 30 to 50 AU from the. Its inner edge starts from. 1. Review planet order and relative sizes in our solar system. The discovery of one KBO can lead to a better understanding of the others. However, their ideas about it were some of the most famous. In short, the existence of the Kuiper Belt a large debris field at the edge of the Solar System was theorized before it was ever discovered. The next full moon is the Pink Moon also known as the Sprouting Grass, Egg, or Fish Moon. NASAs Hubble Space Telescope has completed this year's grand tour of the outer solar system. Dwarf planet Makemake is a member of a group of objects that orbit in a disc-like zone beyond the orbit of Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. An example of this is the Hale-Bopp Comet which takes around 2,520 years to orbit the Sun. Kuiper Belt Missions Could Reveal the Solar System's Origins Phil Davis & Steve Carney The most prominent object in the Kuiper Belt is the well-known planet, Pluto. It made a flyby on this object in 2019. The Kuiper belt is full of weirdness. At that distance, it takes sunlight 6 hours and 20 minutes to reach it. The Kuiper belt is a band of billions of icy asteroids beyond Neptune that are nearly pristine examples of the solar system's ingredients. Objects occupying the stronger resonances are in red. When he initially speculated about the existence of a belt of objects beyond Neptune, Kuiper indicated that such a belt probably did not exist anymore. The asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt are different from the hypothetical Oort cloud. Arrokoth was discovered in 2014. Examples are Triton and Phoebe which are likely captured by Neptune and Saturn, respectively. It is 20 times larger than the asteroid belt and 20 to 200 times more massive. Its orbit has perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) of 34.7AU, an aphelion (farthest distance from the Sun) of 44.1AU, an eccentricity of 0.12 and an inclination of 4 with respect to the ecliptic. Overall, there are three nested belts extending out to 14 billion miles (23 billion kilometers) from the star; that's 150 times the distance of Earth from the Sun. ones with an orbit lasting 200 years or less). In 1992, Jewitt and Luu finally found a candidate KBO that was 44 AU from the Sun. Nothing to do with astronomy. This dwarf has 5 moons: Charon, Hydra, Kerberos, Nix, and Styx. The Kuiper Belt isn't dangerous to us if we can go there, however, if a large object from there has a collision course set with us, we can consider the Kuiper Belt relatively dangerous. 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Being part of the Kuiper Belt, Pluto was reestablished as a "dwarf planet" in 2006. And these days, instead of making a bigger and bigger body, theyre just colliding and slowly grinding down into dust. This object is important in the history of space exploration. But whats the difference between them? In the outer stretches of the Kuiper belt lies the scattered disk. A new study finds the speed of sound is slower on Mars and that, mostly, a deep silence prevails. Dr. Mike Brown is a professor of planetary astronomy at Caltech. The Kuiper Belt (also known as the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt) is a region of the Solar System that exists beyond the eight major planets, extending from the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU) to . The main part of the Kuiper Belt begins at Neptunes orbit. The next full moon is the Crow, Crust, Sap, Sugar, and Worm Moon. However, some astronomers have gone so far as to claim that neither of these names are correct. But whats the difference between them? It's made of icy pieces of space debris the sizes of mountains and sometimes larger. It is unlikely to be relatively recent debris originated in collisions within Pluto's system or a captured object. Pluto was thus the first discovered object beyond Neptune. Although the bodies in the Kuiper Belt were not able to form a gas giant like Neptune, they were able to form small planets such as Pluto and Eris, which are large enough to be spherical and therefore meet the geophysical definition of planet. Astronomers believe that Uranus and Neptune may have formed closer to the Sun than their current position. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt#Exploration Pluto was discovered in 1930, which further led to the discovery of Trans-Neptunian objects. It is speculated that there are approximately 35.000 Kuiper Belt objects larger than 100 km / 62 mi in diameter. The inset diagram compares Pluto's orbit with a Kuiper Belt binary object called 1998 WW31. This site is maintained by the Planetary Science Communications team at, International Astronomical Unions Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature, New NASA Map Details 2023 and 2024 Solar Eclipses in the US, NASA Administrator Selects New Head of Science, March 2023: The Next Full Moon is the Crow, Crust, Sap, Sugar, or Worm Moon, February 2023: The Next Full Moon is the Snow, Storm, or Hunger Moon, January 2023: The Next Full Moon is the Wolf or Ice Moon, November 2022: The Next Full Moon is the Beaver, Frost, Frosty, or Snow Moon, NASA Telescope Takes 12-Year Time-Lapse Movie of Entire Sky, NASA Studies Origins of Weird' Solar System Object: Dwarf Planet Haumea, 10 Things: Greatest Hits Craters We Love, October 2022: The Next Full Moon is the Hunter's Moon; the Travel, Dying Grass, Sanguine, or Blood Moon, September 2022: The Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon; the Fruit or Barley Moon, Explore the Solar System With NASA's New-and-Improved 3D Eyes', August 2022: The Next Full Moon is Called the Sturgeon Moon - and a Marginal Supermoon, June 2022: The Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Supermoon, May 2022: The Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon, the Corn, or Milk Moon, April 2022: The Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon, the Sprouting Grass, Egg, or Fish Moon, What Sounds Captured by NASA's Perseverance Rover Reveal About Mars, NASA's Mega Moon Rocket, Spacecraft Complete First Roll to Launch Pad, NASA's Webb Reaches Alignment Milestone, Optics Working Successfully, March 2022: The Next Full Moon is the Crow, Crust, Sap, Sugar, and Worm Moon, Webb Telescope Mirror Alignment Continues, Studying the Next Interstellar Interloper with Webb. If we come back in another hundred million years, therell be no Kuiper Belt left. It also contains at least one dwarf planet - Pluto. . The scale of the outermost belt is roughly twice the scale of our solar system's Kuiper Belt of small bodies and cold dust beyond Neptune. While some planets were formed, some may not have come together successfully. Pluto boasts an atmosphere, haze, and seasons. One of the most exciting findings in planetary science in recent years is the discovery of interstellar objects passing through our solar system. Scientists have also detected frozen methane and ethane on its surface. The Kuiper Belt is a donut-shaped region beyond Neptune that extends from 30 to 50 AU or more from the Sun. How big is the Kuiper Belt? [8] These calculations confirm the general dynamics described in the hypotheses. It is also believed that other moons of the Solar System have originated from the Kuiper Belt Neptune's Triton and Saturn's moon Phoebe, which may actually be captured objects from the Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is a disc-shaped region beyond Neptune that extends from about 30 to 55 astronomical units (compared to Earth which is one astronomical unit, or AU, from the sun). In 2018, it was given the permanent name 15760 Albion. dwarf planets are Eris, Makemake, and Haumea. Science Writers: [14] Before 486958 Arrokoth was discovered in 2014, Arawn was the best known target for a flyby by the New Horizons spacecraft after its Pluto flyby in 2015. The Kuiper Belt resembles the Asteroid Belt, but it is 20 times more comprehensive and up to 20-100 times more massive. The inner edge begins at the orbit of Neptune, at about 30 AU from the Sun. On January 19th, 2006, NASA launched the New Horizons space probe for the sake of studying Pluto,its moons and one or two other Kuiper Belt objects. The Kuiper Belt is a disk-shaped region past the orbit of Neptune, roughly 4,400,000,000 to 14,900,000,000 km (30 to 100 AU) from the Sun, that consists mainly of small bodies which are the remnants from the Solar System's formation. The icy objects in the region most likely swarmed together to form a planet. 15810 Arawn - Wikipedia The legacy of uncovering Albion led to the discovery of many other trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Data received late Sept. 1, 2021, from NASAs Perseverance rover indicate the team has achieved its goal of successfully coring a Mars rock. Mike Brown did NOT kill Pluto, and it is disappointing to see a writer on this site use this wording. .its just this belt of material out beyond Neptune. Quaoar, Makemake, Haumea, Orcus and Eris are all large icy bodies in the Belt. Pluto and its neighborhood are very peculiar. Occasionally one of these objects would wander into the inner Solar System and become a comet. In 1951, in an article for the journal Astrophysics, that Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper speculated on a similar disc having formed early in the Solar Systems evolution. So far, sky surveys have not detected Planet Nine. An artistic interpretation of Curiositys view high up on a Martian mountain was created by mission team members. Its discovery was rather controversial because two teams claimed credit for discovering it. Nice try. Scientists believe that Pluto might not be aloneand they are right. They did their research at the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Arizona and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. If the objects are currently being churned to dust, had they once grown larger? Orcus has a large moon called Vanth. Several of them even have moons of their own. The two discoverers wanted to call this object Smiley. However, this name was already taken by the asteroid 1613 Smiley. (How long is a road?) With a belt, as Fernndez described it, added to the formulations, the simulations matched observations. For example, Brian G. Marsden a British astronomer and the longtime director of the Minor Planet Center (MPC) at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics claimed that Neither Edgeworth nor Kuiper wrote about anything remotely like what we are now seeing, but Fred Whipple (the American astronomer who came up with the dirty snowball comet hypothesis) did. The Kuiper Belt contains millions of comet nuclei, and it is similar to the theoretical, The Kuiper Belt is a disk-shaped region situated in the outer, , which is past Neptune's orbit. Also, it did not have an official name yet so it was nicknamed Ultima Thule. It became the first New Horizons target after its successful flyby on Pluto. Slightly smaller than Pluto, Makemake is the second-brightest object in the Kuiper Belt as seen from Earth (while Pluto is the brightest). - The Kuiper Belt is big and mysterious, but you can spot objects within it. It was named after Arawn, the ruler of the Celtic underworld, and discovered on 12 May 1994, by astronomers Michael Irwin and Anna ytkow with the 2.5-metre Isaac Newton Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in the Canary Islands, Spain. The Kuiper Belt , a disk-shaped region found in the outer solar system , past the orbit of Neptune! But unlike the Asteroid Belt, it is much larger 20 times as wide and 20 to 200 times as massive. This is more like a ratio. The two planetesimals that make it up are 21 km (13 mi) and 15 km (9 mi) in diameter. 7, 2003, but no official discoverer is listed. Based on observations from several NASA missions, the map details the path of the Moons shadow as it crosses the contiguous U.S. during eclipses in 2023 and 2024. . Mass And Size A Diagram Showing the Location of the Kuiper Belt in Our Solar System, NASA The exact size of the Kuiper Belt is not fully known, yet it is far larger than the Asteroid Belt. Scientists know very little about Makemake's structure. This feature is roughly the size of Texas and Oklahoma. Halleys Comet is an example of a short-period comet. Keeping Pluto company out in the Kuiper belt, are many other objects worthy of mention. Scientists do not know if Makemake has a magnetosphere. Where do comets come from? - About 100 million small objects are estimated to exist within the Kuiper Belt. Incompetent organization of the IAU is the problem here. His dirty snowball hypothesis also speculated on the presence of this region which he called a comet belt.. The other known dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt are Pluto, Eris, and Makemake (dwarf planet Ceres is located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter). This the first ever official planet definition is meaningless. Most resonant objects are in this category. The body is about 200-250 km (125-155 miles) in diameter, as estimated from its brightness. What is the Kuiper Belt? | Space They were observed through the Hubble Space Telescope. The Kuiper Belt [the fuzzy disk] extends from inside . Source: Minor Planet Center, www .cfeps .net and others Types of distant minor planets Cis-Neptunian objects Centaurs Neptune trojans Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) Not only did it help to explain why there were no large planets further out in the Solar System, it also conveniently wrapped up the mystery of where comets came from. are very much alike, but the Kuiper Belt is much broader and contains more comets. Makemake was first observed in March 2005 by M.E. Classical KBOs are also called cubewanos. They lie at an average distance of 40 to 50 AU from the Sun. This hypothetical planet is called Planet Nine. To put it simply, our solar system is structured this way: We have not directly observed the Oort cloud because of the great distance. Salma Chtourou (@salma_chtourou_) on Instagram: "The space While our planet is in some ways a mere speck in the vast cosmos, ." Key Facts & Summary. The most up-and-down and least-tall of the loops are for Quaoar and Varuna. In time, they began to postulate the existence of other objects in the region, which they would discover by 1992. But one thing that Kuiper was definitely right about was the idea that these Trans-Neptunian Objects wont last forever. The surface of Makemake is extremely cold, so it seems unlikely that life could exist there. The Kuiper Belt and the. . Nickel-iron" (M-types) asteroids are metallic with iron sinking in the center and pushing lava to the surface. Are both Mercury and Jupiter major planets? 1. IAU classification is not in perpetuity and I hope that after New Horizons encounter with Pluto, its status will be reconsidered. Scientists consider Pluto to be one of the largest Kuiper belt objects. These appear to fall into two categories: wide belts, with radii of over 50 AU, and narrow belts (like our own Kuiper Belt) with radii of between 20 and 30 AU and relatively sharp boundaries. Sorry. What is the Kuiper Belt? Because of that, they started their search for astronomical objects beyond Neptunes orbit. Chondrites (C-type) are the most common type of. . Quaoar is a planetoid in the Kuiper belt. Comets are mostly found way out in the solar system. Matt, I like the article too. Everything we know about Haumea is from observations with ground-based telescopes from around the world. Compared to other objects in the belt, cubewanos have relatively circular orbits that are not very tilted. Shortly after Tombaughs discovery of Pluto, astronomers began to ponder the existence of a Trans-Neptunian population of objects in the outer Solar System. Plutos status should be unconsidered! They are not minor planets, a term that is a synonym for asteroids and comets. This year, the minimum extent of Arctic sea ice dropped to 1.82 million square miles (4.72 million square kilometers). In contrast, the cold classical KBOs never came close to the giant planet. The craft navigated within the Belt and conducted a flyby of. There is a nice parallel article to this (by Emily Lakdawalla) in the most recent Sky & Telescope. Scientists have pieced together the story of how dwarf planet Haumea became one of the most unusual objects in the solar system. Big News / Small Bytes. "Stonies" (S-types) asteroids consist of nickel-iron and silicate materials." Good to know someone wasnt entirely focused on Pluto and the IAU. Some of the considered targets are 50000 Quaoar, 28978 Ixion, and 47171 Lempo, among others. NASA/ESA and A. Feild (Space Telescope Science Institute), Subscribe to the ESA/Hubble/Webb Science Newsletter, Step-by-step guide to making your own images, Black Holes, Quasars, and Active Galaxies. - In 2005, scientists noticed a more massive object than Pluto in the Kuiper Belt Xena (after the famous warrior princess), later on, named Eris. [10] In April 2016, its rotation period of 5.47 hours was determined. As they migrated, they destabilized the smaller bodies around them. Arrokoth is KBO that looks like a snowman. Also, scientists say that Kuiper Belt is the source of the short-period. It is a debate which the IAU unnecessarily created out of nowhere, and to which it has no solution. The three other (for now!) In Depth | Makemake - NASA Solar System Exploration Unit 6.5 Kuiper Belt Objects Unit 6.5 Kuiper Belt Objects Objective To learn about the properties of the Kuiper Belt Objects orbiting beyond Neptune, including their physical sizes, orbital eccentricities, and orbital inclinations Introduction Following the discovery of Uranus in 1781 and Neptune in 1846, astronomers searched for signs of other planets lurking in far reaches of the Solar . Before this dwarf planet was confirmed, its provisional name was 2005 FY9. The next full moon is the Flower Moon and there will be a total lunar eclipse. The next full moon is the Hunter's Moon; the Travel, Dying Grass, Sanguine, or Blood Moon. The big difference is that it extends much farther out into space -- it begins past Neptune at 30 AU and reaches as far as 50 AU, or 7.5 million kilometers. [9], April 2016 observations of Arawn by New Horizons, Trajectory of New Horizons and other nearby Kuiper belt objects, Arawn occulted a star on 25 August 2022. And astronomers are expecting to discover two more large planets in our Solar System. The same is true about the asteroid belt. The majority of the dwarf planets located in the Kuiper Belt have their own moon. It is also believed that other moons of the Solar System have originated from the Kuiper Belt Neptune's Triton and. If that happens, we could say it would cause a global disaster. We can't see too many details of Makemake's surface from so far away, but it does appear to be a reddish-brownish color, similar to Pluto. https://www.space.com/16144-kuiper-belt-objects.html [7], On 2 November 2015 Arawn was imaged by the LORRI instrument aboard New Horizons, making it the closest observation of a Kuiper belt object other than the PlutoCharon system by a factor of 15. These numbers can also be written the other way, like 3:2 for Neptune and Pluto. These space debris have been around since the formation of the solar system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50000_Quaoar Neptune is the farthest planet from the Sun, and as such, the Kuiper Belt is very far away from us. Brown, C.A. The next full Moon will be on Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023. Hes best known as the man who killed Pluto, thanks to his teams discovery of Eris and other Kuiper Belt Objects. This suggests that it might be a primordial plutino formed around the same time Pluto itself and Charon came into existence. Still, the strongest evidence of its existence is that it must be the source of many long-period comets beyond Pluto. These planetesimals were scattered inward while some were thrown further. The distance among objects within the asteroid belt is 24 times the circumference of Earth. However, it does not form a disk, but a shell. After five years of searching, on August 30th, 1992, Jewitt and Luu announced the Discovery of the candidate Kuiper belt object (15760) 1992 QB1. A Sampling of the Targets. Scientists have announced that samples collected by Curiosity are rich in a type of carbon associated with biological processes on Earth. Alternatively, the Kuiper belt is mostly populated with icy objects and comets. Where is the. Centaurs are a different type of objects that orbit the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune. For example, Pluto is in a 2:3 resonance with Neptune. This illustration shows that the Kuiper Belt is shaped like a disk [see inset diagram] and resides within the shell-like structure of the Oort Cloud. Omega by Scott Buckley https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/omega-scott-buckley Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/ZRBsgI8PD1Y 8 Its unofficial codename was Easterbunny. Yeah that 100 million years tag is weird. The idea that objects exist together with Pluto is has been there for a long time. Originally designated 2003 EL61 (and nicknamed Santa by one discovery team), Haumea is located in the Kuiper Belt, a donut-shaped region of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. Namaka is a water spirit in Hawaiian mythology. Rabinowitz at the Palomar Observatory. They are dark-looking and are the oldest objects in the Solar System. Makemake was discovered in 2005. It is orbited by eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. [18], Between 78 April 2016, New Horizons imaged Arawn from a new record distance of about 111 million kilometres, using the LORRI instrument. One of its most distinguishing features is the heart-shaped glacier called Tombaugh Regio. These icy, rocky bodies are called Kuiper Belt objects, transneptunian objects, or plutoids. Why Saturn's moons have been so hard to find - BBC Future They are not the discoverers of the said circumstellar disk. Why do these miniature worlds fascinate space explorers so much? "Kuiper Belt Facts". The International Astronomical Unions Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature lists the discovery location as Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain on Mar. The Kuiper Belt and the Asteroid belt are old residues from the Solar System's formation. It is believed that the main body of the Kuiper Belts has more than a trillion comet nuclei. - The origin of the Kuiper Belt hasn't yet been determined. Artists impression of NASAs New Horizons spacecraft, en route to a January 2019 encounter with Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69.Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI. More vertical loops indicate more circular orbits. On the edge of the solar system away from the warmth of the sun is a vast ring of millions. Monocular vs. Binoculars- Which One is Best for Stargazing. Since it rotates very fast, its shape has become distorted and it now looks like an egg. As Haumea orbits the Sun, it completes one rotation every 4 hours, making it one of the fastest rotating large objects in our solar system. The next full moon is called the Sturgeon Moon and its a marginal supermoon. Located on the outskirts of the solar system, the Kuiper Belt is a "junkyard" of countless icy bodies left over from the solar system's formation. While this has remained the official name, astronomers sometimes use the alternative name Edgeworth-Kuiper belt to credit Edgeworth for his earlier theoretical work. That means it is composed of two bodies that have joined together. It is located roughly 39 AU from the Sun and completes an orbit in 245 years. There is a torus (donut-shaped) region in the outer solar system beyond the disk of planets which contains more than 100,000 large icy bodies. The rover will abrade a rock this week, allowing scientists and engineers to decide whether that target would withstand its powerful drill. The existence of the Kuiper belt was hypothesized for a long time. What is the Kuiper Belt? The Kuiper Belt is what holds up Kuipers pants. Makemake has one provisional moon, S/2015 (136472) 1, and it's nicknamed MK 2. Overview | Kuiper Belt - NASA Solar System Exploration Pluto was once the ninth planet in our solar system. - There are many objects within the Belt, but the most well-known are the three dwarf planets: Pluto, Haumea, and Makemake. Universe Today also has a full-length interview with Mike Brown from Caltech. Accessed 5 July, 2023. How big is the Kuiper Belt? The Kuiper Belt is a donut-shaped structure from the outer Solar System. obtained spectroscopic data on the KBO 1993 SC, revealing its surface composition to be markedly similar to that of Pluto, as well as Neptunes moon Triton, possessing large amounts of methane ice. However, they inferred its existence because of the gravitational effects on other KBOs. Discs around the stars HD 138664 in the Lupus constellation and around HD 53143 in the Carina constellation have been observed. It extends from the orbit of Neptune, at 30-50 AU from the Sun. Its existence is not yet proven, but also not disproven. Kuiper Belt | Facts, Information, History & Definition After Pluto, it is the second-brightest KBO that we can see on Earth. If so, what event reversed the trend the gradual forming of Neptune or perhaps a change in its orbit? Also, it is believed to be 400 to 800 times as far from the Sun. The camera aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft imaged Saturn on Oct. 13, 2021. Display the NASA illustration: All Planet Sizes. Because of that, no one is really credited for originally proposing this idea. New Juno findings provide a fuller picture of Jupiter's colorful atmospheric features, and offer clues about what's below the clouds. What is the Kuiper Belt? - Space Center Houston It is possible that a large object impacted Haumea billions of years ago and set off Haumea's spin and created its moons. What is anything, actually, how long is a string? We call these short-period comets. But instead, in the history of the solar system, when Neptune formed it led to these objects not being able to get together, so its just this belt of material out beyond Neptune. Pluto was thus the first discovered object beyond Neptune. No other missions to the Kuiper belt have followed the New Horizons.