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Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Oort cloud

Oort cloud

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
An artist's rendering of the Oort cloud and the Kuiper belt (inset). Sizes of individual objects have been exaggerated for visibility.

The Oort cloud (/ˈɔrt/ or /ˈʊərt/;[1]) or Öpik–Oort cloud,[2] named after Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, is a spherical cloud of predominantly icy planetesimals believed to surround the Sun at up to 50,000 AU.[3] This places the cloud a quarter of the distance to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun. The Kuiper belt and the scattered disc, the other two reservoirs of trans-Neptunian objects, are less than one thousandth as far from the Sun as the Oort cloud. The outer limit of the Oort cloud defines the cosmographical boundary of the Solar System and the region of the Sun's gravitational dominance.[4]

The Oort cloud is thought to comprise two regions: a spherical outer Oort cloud and a disc-shaped inner Oort cloud, or Hills cloud. Objects in the Oort cloud are largely composed of ices, such as water, ammonia, and methane.

Astronomers conjecture that the matter composing the Oort cloud formed closer to the Sun and was scattered far into space by the gravitational effects of the giant planets early in the Solar System's evolution.[3] Although no confirmed direct observations of the Oort cloud are made, it may be the source of all long-period and Halley-type comets entering the inner Solar System, and many of the centaurs and Jupiter-family comets as well.[5] The outer Oort cloud is only loosely bound to the Solar System, and thus is easily affected by the gravitational pull both of passing stars and of the Milky Way itself. These forces occasionally dislodge comets from their orbits within the cloud and send them towards the inner Solar System.[3] Based on their orbits, most of the short-period comets may come from the scattered disc, but some may still have originated from the Oort cloud.[3][5]

Hypothesis

In 1932, the Estonian astronomer Ernst Öpik postulated that long-period comets originated in an orbiting cloud at the outermost edge of the Solar System.[6] The idea was independently revived by Oort as a means to resolve a paradox.[7] Over the course of the Solar System's existence the orbits of comets are unstable and eventually dynamics dictate that a comet must either collide with the Sun or a planet or else be ejected from the Solar System by planetary perturbations. Moreover, their volatile composition means that as they repeatedly approach the Sun radiation gradually boils the volatiles off until the comet splits or develops an insulating crust that prevents further outgassing. Thus, Oort reasoned, a comet could not have formed while in its current orbit and must have been held in an outer reservoir for almost all of its existence.[7][8][9]

There are two main classes of comet, short-period comets (also called ecliptic comets) and long-period comets (also called nearly isotropic comets). Ecliptic comets have relatively small orbits, below 10 AU, and follow the ecliptic plane, the same plane in which the planets lie. All long-period comets have very large orbits, on the order of thousands of AU, and appear from every direction in the sky.[9] Oort noted that there was a peak in numbers of long-period comets with aphelia (their farthest distance from the Sun) of roughly 20,000 AU, which suggested a reservoir at that distance with a spherical, isotropic distribution.[9] Those relatively rare comets with orbits of about 10,000 AU have probably gone through one or more orbits through the Solar System and have had their orbits drawn inward by the gravity of the planets.[9]

Structure and composition

The presumed distance of the Oort cloud compared to the rest of the Solar System

The Oort cloud is thought to occupy a vast space from somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 AU (0.03 and 0.08 ly)[9] to as far as 50,000 AU (0.79 ly)[3] from the Sun. Some estimates place the outer edge at between 100,000 and 200,000 AU (1.58 and 3.16 ly).[9] The region can be subdivided into a spherical outer Oort cloud of 20,000–50,000 AU (0.32–0.79 ly), and a doughnut-shaped inner Oort cloud of 2,000–20,000 AU (0.03–0.32 ly). The outer cloud is only weakly bound to the Sun and supplies the long-period (and possibly Halley-type) comets to inside the orbit of Neptune.[3] The inner Oort cloud is also known as the Hills cloud, named after J. G. Hills, who proposed its existence in 1981.[10] Models predict that the inner cloud should have tens or hundreds of times as many cometary nuclei as the outer halo;[10][11][12] it is seen as a possible source of new comets to resupply the tenuous outer cloud as the latter's numbers are gradually depleted. The Hills cloud explains the continued existence of the Oort cloud after billions of years.[13]

The outer Oort cloud may have trillions of objects larger than 1 km (0.62 mi),[3] and billions with absolute magnitudes[14] brighter than 11 (corresponding to approximately 20-kilometre (12 mi) diameter), with neighboring objects tens of millions of kilometres apart.[5][15] Its total mass is not known, but, assuming that Halley's Comet is a suitable prototype for comets within the outer Oort cloud, roughly the combined mass is 3×1025 kilograms (6.6×1025 pounds), or five times the Earth.[3][16] Earlier it was thought to be more massive (up to 380 Earth masses),[17] but improved knowledge of the size distribution of long-period comets led to lower estimates. The mass of the inner Oort Cloud has not been characterized.

If analyses of comets are representative of the whole, the vast majority of Oort-cloud objects consist of ices such as water, methane, ethane, carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide.[18] However, the discovery of the object 1996 PW, an asteroid in an orbit more typical of a long-period comet, suggests that the cloud may also contain rocky objects.[19] Analysis of the carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in both the long-period and Jupiter-family comets shows little difference between the two, despite their presumably vastly separate regions of origin. This suggests that both originated from the original protosolar cloud,[20] a conclusion also supported by studies of granular size in Oort-cloud comets[21] and by the recent impact study of Jupiter-family comet Tempel 1.[22]

Origin

The Oort cloud is thought to be a remnant of the original protoplanetary disc that formed around the Sun approximately 4.6 billion years ago.[3] The most widely accepted hypothesis is that the Oort cloud's objects initially coalesced much closer to the Sun as part of the same process that formed the planets and asteroids, but that gravitational interaction with young gas giant planets such as Jupiter ejected the objects into extremely long elliptic or parabolic orbits.[3][23] Recent research has been cited by NASA hypothesizing that a large number of Oort cloud objects are the product of an exchange of materials between the Sun and its sibling stars as they formed and drifted apart, and it is suggested that many—possibly the majority—of Oort cloud objects were not formed in close proximity to the Sun.[24] Simulations of the evolution of the Oort cloud from the beginnings of the Solar System to the present suggest that the cloud's mass peaked around 800 million years after formation, as the pace of accretion and collision slowed and depletion began to overtake supply.[3]
Models by Julio Ángel Fernández suggest that the scattered disc, which is the main source for periodic comets in the Solar System, might also be the primary source for Oort cloud objects.
According to the models, about half of the objects scattered travel outward towards the Oort cloud, while a quarter are shifted inward to Jupiter's orbit, and a quarter are ejected on hyperbolic orbits. The scattered disc might still be supplying the Oort cloud with material.[25] A third of the scattered disc's population is likely to end up in the Oort cloud after 2.5 billion years.[26]

Computer models suggest that collisions of cometary debris during the formation period play a far greater role than was previously thought. According to these models, the number of collisions early in the Solar System's history was so great that most comets were destroyed before they reached the Oort cloud. Therefore, the current cumulative mass of the Oort cloud is far less than was once suspected.[27] The estimated mass of the cloud is only a small part of the 50–100 Earth masses of ejected material.[3]

Gravitational interaction with nearby stars and galactic tides modified cometary orbits to make them more circular. This explains the nearly spherical shape of the outer Oort cloud.[3] On the other hand, the Hills cloud, which is bound more strongly to the Sun, has yet to acquire a spherical shape. Recent studies have shown that the formation of the Oort cloud is broadly compatible with the hypothesis that the Solar System formed as part of an embedded cluster of 200–400 stars. These early stars likely played a role in the cloud's formation, since the number of close stellar passages within the cluster was much higher than today, leading to far more frequent perturbations.[28]

In June 2010 Harold F. Levison and others suggested on the basis of enhanced computer simulations that the Sun "captured comets from other stars while it was in its birth cluster". Their results imply that "a substantial fraction of the Oort cloud comets, perhaps exceeding 90%, are from the protoplanetary discs of other stars".[29]

Comets

Comet Hale–Bopp, an archetypal Oort-cloud comet

Comets are thought to have two separate points of origin in the Solar System. Short-period comets (those with orbits of up to 200 years) are generally accepted to have emerged from either the Kuiper belt or the scattered disc, which are two linked flat discs of icy debris beyond Neptune's orbit at 30 AU and jointly extending out beyond 100 AU from the Sun. Long-period comets, such as comet Hale–Bopp, whose orbits last for thousands of years, are thought to originate in the Oort cloud. The orbits within the Kuiper belt are relatively stable, and so very few comets are thought to originate there. The scattered disc, however, is dynamically active, and is far more likely to be the place of origin for comets.[9] Comets pass from the scattered disc into the realm of the outer planets, becoming what are known as centaurs.[30] These centaurs are then sent farther inward to become the short-period comets.[31]

There are two main varieties of short-period comet: Jupiter-family comets (those with semi-major axes of less than 5 AU) and Halley-family comets. Halley-family comets, named for their prototype, Halley's Comet, are unusual in that while they are short-period comets, it is hypothesized that their ultimate origin lies in the Oort cloud, not in the scattered disc. Based on their orbits, it is suggested they were long-period comets that were captured by the gravity of the giant planets and sent into the inner Solar System.[8] This process may have also created the present orbits of a significant fraction of the Jupiter-family comets, although the majority of such comets are thought to have originated in the scattered disc.[5]

Oort noted that the number of returning comets was far less than his model predicted, and this issue, known as "cometary fading", has yet to be resolved. No known dynamical process can explain this undercount of observed comets. Hypotheses for this discrepancy include the destruction of comets due to tidal stresses, impact or heating; the loss of all volatiles, rendering some comets invisible, or the formation of a non-volatile crust on the surface.[32] Dynamical studies of Oort Cloud comets have shown that their occurrence in the outer-planet region is several times higher than in the inner-planet region. This discrepancy may be due to the gravitational attraction of Jupiter, which acts as a kind of barrier, trapping incoming comets and causing them to collide with it, just as it did with Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 in 1994.[33]

Tidal effects

Most of the comets seen close to the Sun seem to have reached their current positions through gravitational distortion of the Oort cloud by the tidal force exerted by the Milky Way. Just as the Moon's tidal force bends and deforms the Earth's oceans, causing the tides to rise and fall, the galactic tide also bends and distorts the orbits of bodies in the outer Solar System, pulling them towards the galactic centre. In the charted regions of the Solar System, these effects are negligible compared to the gravity of the Sun. At the outer reaches of the system, however, the Sun's gravity is weaker and the gradient of the Milky Way's gravitational field plays a far more noticeable role. Because of this gradient, galactic tides can deform an otherwise spherical Oort cloud, stretching the cloud in the direction of the galactic centre and compressing it along the other two axes. These small galactic perturbations may be enough to dislodge members of the Oort cloud from their orbits, sending them towards the Sun.[34] The point at which the Sun's gravity concedes its influence to the galactic tide is called the tidal truncation radius. It lies at a radius of 100,000 to 200,000 AU, and marks the outer boundary of the Oort cloud.[9]
Some scholars theorise that the galactic tide may have contributed to the formation of the Oort cloud by increasing the perihelia—closest distances to the Sun—of planetesimals with large aphelia.[35] The effects of the galactic tide are quite complex, and depend heavily on the behaviour of individual objects within a planetary system. Cumulatively, however, the effect can be quite significant: up to 90% of all comets originating from the Oort cloud may be the result of the galactic tide.[36] Statistical models of the observed orbits of long-period comets argue that the galactic tide is the principal means by which their orbits are perturbed toward the inner Solar System.[37]

Star perturbations and stellar companion hypotheses

Besides the galactic tide, the main trigger for sending comets into the inner Solar System is thought to be interaction between the Sun's Oort cloud and the gravitational fields of nearby stars[3] or giant molecular clouds.[33] The orbit of the Sun through the plane of the Milky Way sometimes brings it in relatively close proximity to other stellar systems. For example, during the next 10 million years the known star with the greatest possibility of perturbing the Oort cloud is Gliese 710.[38] This process also serves to scatter the objects out of the ecliptic plane, potentially also explaining the cloud's spherical distribution.[38][39]

In 1984, Physicist Richard A. Muller postulated that the Sun has a heretofore undetected companion, either a brown dwarf or a red dwarf, in an elliptical orbit within the Oort cloud. This object, known as Nemesis, was hypothesized to pass through a portion of the Oort cloud approximately every 26 million years, bombarding the inner Solar System with comets. However, to date no evidence of Nemesis has been found, and many lines of evidence (such as crater counts), have thrown its existence into doubt.[40][41] Recent scientific analysis no longer supports the idea that extinctions on Earth happen at regular, repeating intervals.[42] Thus, the Nemesis hypothesis is no longer needed.[42]

A somewhat similar hypothesis was advanced by astronomer John J. Matese of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2002. He contends that more comets are arriving in the inner Solar System from a particular region of the Oort Cloud than can be explained by the galactic tide or stellar perturbations alone, and that the most likely cause is a Jupiter-mass object in a distant orbit.[43] This hypothetical gas giant planet has been nicknamed Tyche. Matese and Whitmire believed that the WISE mission, an all-sky survey using parallax measurements in order to clarify local star distances, was capable of either proving or disproving the Tyche hypothesis.[42] In 2014, NASA announced that the WISE survey had ruled out any object as they had defined it.[44]

Modified Newtonian dynamics within the Oort cloud

Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND)[45][46] suggests that at their distances from the Sun, the objects comprising the Oort cloud should experience accelerations of the order of 10−10 m/s2, and thus should be within the realms at which deviations from Newtonian predictions come into effect.
According to this hypothesis, which was proposed to account for the discrepancies in the galaxy rotation curve, which are more commonly attributed to dark matter, acceleration ceases to be linearly proportional to force at very low accelerations.[45] If correct, this would have significant implications regarding the formation and structure of the Oort cloud. However, the majority of cosmologists do not consider MOND a valid hypothesis.[47]

Future exploration

Space probes have yet to reach the area of the Oort cloud. One proposal is to use a craft powered by a solar sail that would take around 30 years to reach its destination.[48]

Kuiper belt

Kuiper belt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Known objects in the Kuiper belt, derived from data from the Minor Planet Center. Objects in the main belt are colored green, whereas scattered objects are colored orange. The four outer planets are blue. Neptune's few known trojans are yellow, whereas Jupiter's are pink. The scattered objects between Jupiter's orbit and the Kuiper belt are known as centaurs. The scale is in astronomical units. The pronounced gap at the bottom is due to difficulties in detection against the background of the plane of the Milky Way.

The Kuiper belt /ˈkpər/, sometimes called the Edgeworth–Kuiper belt (after the astronomers Kenneth Edgeworth and Gerard Kuiper), is a region of the Solar System beyond the planets, extending from the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun.[1] It is similar to the asteroid belt, but it is far larger—20 times as wide and 20 to 200 times as massive.[2][3] Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies, or remnants from the Solar System's formation. Although most asteroids are composed primarily of rock and metal, most Kuiper belt objects are composed largely of frozen volatiles (termed "ices"), such as methane, ammonia and water. The Kuiper belt is home to at least three dwarf planets: Pluto, Haumea, and Makemake. Some of the Solar System's moons, such as Neptune's Triton and Saturn's Phoebe, are also believed to have originated in the region.[4][5]

Since the belt was discovered in 1992,[6] the number of known Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) has increased to over a thousand, and more than 100,000 KBOs over 100 km (62 mi) in diameter are believed to exist.[7] The Kuiper belt was initially thought to be the main repository for periodic comets, those with orbits lasting less than 200 years. However, studies since the mid-1990s have shown that the belt is dynamically stable, and that comets' true place of origin is the scattered disc, a dynamically active zone created by the outward motion of Neptune 4.5 billion years ago;[8] scattered disc objects such as Eris have extremely eccentric orbits that take them as far as 100 AU from the Sun.[nb 1]

The Kuiper belt should not be confused with the hypothesized Oort cloud, which is a thousand times more distant. The objects within the Kuiper belt, together with the members of the scattered disc and any potential Hills cloud or Oort cloud objects, are collectively referred to as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs).[11]

Pluto is the largest member of the Kuiper belt, and the second largest known TNO, the largest being Eris in the scattered disc.[nb 1] Originally considered a planet, Pluto's status as part of the Kuiper belt caused it to be reclassified as a "dwarf planet" in 2006. It is compositionally similar to many other objects of the Kuiper belt, and its orbital period is characteristic of a class of KBOs, known as "plutinos", that share the same 2:3 resonance with Neptune.

History

After the discovery of Pluto, many speculated that it might not be alone. The region now called the Kuiper belt was hypothesized in various forms for decades. It was only in 1992 that the first direct evidence for its existence was found. The number and variety of prior speculations on the nature of the Kuiper belt have led to continued uncertainty as to who deserves credit for first proposing it.

Hypotheses

The first astronomer to suggest the existence of a trans-Neptunian population was Frederick C. Leonard. Soon after Pluto's discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Leonard pondered whether it was "not likely that in Pluto there has come to light the first of a series of ultra-Neptunian bodies, the remaining members of which still await discovery but which are destined eventually to be detected".[12] That same year, astronomer Armin O. Leuschner suggested that Pluto "may be one of many long-period planetary objects yet to be discovered."[13]
Astronomer Gerard Kuiper, after whom the Kuiper belt is named

In 1943, in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association, Kenneth Edgeworth hypothesized that, in the region beyond Neptune, the material within the primordial solar nebula was too widely spaced to condense into planets, and so rather condensed into a myriad of smaller bodies. From this he concluded that "the outer region of the solar system, beyond the orbits of the planets, is occupied by a very large number of comparatively small bodies"[14] and that, from time to time, one of their number "wanders from its own sphere and appears as an occasional visitor to the inner solar system",[15] becoming a comet.

In 1951, in an article for the journal Astrophysics, Gerard Kuiper speculated on a similar disc having formed early in the Solar System's evolution; however, he did not believe that such a belt still existed today. Kuiper was operating on the assumption common in his time that Pluto was the size of the Earth and had therefore scattered these bodies out toward the Oort cloud or out of the Solar System. Were Kuiper's hypothesis correct, there would not be a Kuiper belt today.[16]

The hypothesis took many other forms in the following decades. In 1962, physicist Al G.W. Cameron postulated the existence of "a tremendous mass of small material on the outskirts of the solar system".[17] In 1964, Fred Whipple, who popularised the famous "dirty snowball" hypothesis for cometary structure, thought that a "comet belt" might be massive enough to cause the purported discrepancies in the orbit of Uranus that had sparked the search for Planet X, or, at the very least, massive enough to affect the orbits of known comets.[18] Observation, however, ruled out this hypothesis.[17]

In 1977, Charles Kowal discovered 2060 Chiron, an icy planetoid with an orbit between Saturn and Uranus. He used a blink comparator, the same device that had allowed Clyde Tombaugh to discover Pluto nearly 50 years before.[19] In 1992, another object, 5145 Pholus, was discovered in a similar orbit.[20] Today, an entire population of comet-like bodies, called the centaurs, is known to exist in the region between Jupiter and Neptune. The centaurs' orbits are unstable and have dynamical lifetimes of a few million years.[21] From the time of Chiron's discovery in 1977, astronomers have speculated that the centaurs therefore must be frequently replenished by some outer reservoir.[22]

Further evidence for the existence of the Kuiper belt later emerged from the study of comets. That comets have finite lifespans has been known for some time. As they approach the Sun, its heat causes their volatile surfaces to sublimate into space, gradually evaporating them. In order for comets to continue to be visible over the age of the Solar System, they must be replenished frequently.[23] One such area of replenishment is the Oort cloud, a spherical swarm of comets extending beyond 50,000 AU from the Sun first hypothesised by astronomer Jan Oort in 1950.[24] The Oort cloud is believed to be the point of origin of long-period comets, which are those, like Hale–Bopp, with orbits lasting thousands of years.

There is, however, another comet population, known as short-period or periodic comets, consisting of those comets that, like Halley's Comet, have orbital periods of less than 200 years. By the 1970s, the rate at which short-period comets were being discovered was becoming increasingly inconsistent with their having emerged solely from the Oort cloud.[25] For an Oort cloud object to become a short-period comet, it would first have to be captured by the giant planets. In 1980, in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Uruguayan astronomer Julio Fernández stated that for every short-period comet to be sent into the inner Solar System from the Oort cloud, 600 would have to be ejected into interstellar space. He speculated that a comet belt from between 35 and 50 AU would be required to account for the observed number of comets.[26] Following up on Fernández's work, in 1988 the Canadian team of Martin Duncan, Tom Quinn and Scott Tremaine ran a number of computer simulations to determine if all observed comets could have arrived from the Oort cloud. They found that the Oort cloud could not account for all short-period comets, particularly as short-period comets are clustered near the plane of the Solar System, whereas Oort-cloud comets tend to arrive from any point in the sky. With a “belt”, as Fernández described it, added to the formulations, the simulations matched observations.[27] Reportedly because the words "Kuiper" and "comet belt" appeared in the opening sentence of Fernández's paper, Tremaine named this hypothetical region the "Kuiper belt".[28]

Discovery

The array of telescopes atop Mauna Kea, with which the Kuiper belt was discovered

In 1987, astronomer David Jewitt, then at MIT, became increasingly puzzled by "the apparent emptiness of the outer Solar System".[6] He encouraged then-graduate student Jane Luu to aid him in his endeavour to locate another object beyond Pluto's orbit, because, as he told her, "If we don't, nobody will."[29] Using telescopes at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, Jewitt and Luu conducted their search in much the same way as Clyde Tombaugh and Charles Kowal had, with a blink comparator.[29] Initially, examination of each pair of plates took about eight hours,[30] but the process was sped up with the arrival of electronic charge-coupled devices or CCDs, which, though their field of view was narrower, were not only more efficient at collecting light (they retained 90% of the light that hit them, rather than the 10% achieved by photographs) but allowed the blinking process to be done virtually, on a computer screen. Today, CCDs form the basis for most astronomical detectors.[31] In 1988, Jewitt moved to the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Hawaii. Luu later joined him to work at the University of Hawaii's 2.24 m telescope at Mauna Kea.[32] Eventually, the field of view for CCDs had increased to 1024 by 1024 pixels, which allowed searches to be conducted far more rapidly.[33] Finally, after five years of searching, on August 30, 1992, Jewitt and Luu announced the "Discovery of the candidate Kuiper belt object" (15760) 1992 QB1.[6] Six months later, they discovered a second object in the region, (181708) 1993 FW.[34]

Studies conducted since the trans-Neptunian region was first charted have shown that the region now called the Kuiper belt is not the point of origin of short-period comets, but that they instead derive from a linked population called the scattered disc. The scattered disc was created when Neptune migrated outward into the proto-Kuiper belt, which at the time was much closer to the Sun, and left in its wake a population of dynamically stable objects that could never be affected by its orbit (the Kuiper belt proper), and a population whose perihelia are close enough that Neptune can still disturb them as it travels around the Sun (the scattered disc). Because the scattered disc is dynamically active and the Kuiper belt relatively dynamically stable, the scattered disc is now seen as the most likely point of origin for periodic comets.[8]

Name

Astronomers sometimes use the alternative name Edgeworth–Kuiper belt to credit Edgeworth, and KBOs are occasionally referred to as EKOs. However, Brian G. Marsden claims that neither deserves true credit: "Neither Edgeworth nor Kuiper wrote about anything remotely like what we are now seeing, but Fred Whipple did".[35] David Jewitt comments: "If anything ... Fernández most nearly deserves the credit for predicting the Kuiper Belt."[16]

KBOs are sometimes called kuiperoids, a name suggested by Clyde Tombaugh.[36] The term trans-Neptunian object (TNO) is recommended for objects in the belt by several scientific groups because the term is less controversial than all others—it is not an exact synonym though, as TNOs include all objects orbiting the Sun past the orbit of Neptune, not just those in the Kuiper belt.

Origins

Simulation showing outer planets and Kuiper belt: a) before Jupiter/Saturn 2:1 resonance, b) scattering of Kuiper belt objects into the Solar System after the orbital shift of Neptune, c) after ejection of Kuiper belt bodies by Jupiter

The precise origins of the Kuiper belt and its complex structure are still unclear, and astronomers are awaiting the completion of several wide-field survey telescopes such as Pan-STARRS and the future LSST, which should reveal many currently unknown KBOs. These surveys will provide data that will help determine answers to these questions.[2]

The Kuiper belt is believed to consist of planetesimals, fragments from the original protoplanetary disc around the Sun that failed to fully coalesce into planets and instead formed into smaller bodies, the largest less than 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) in diameter.

Modern computer simulations show the Kuiper belt to have been strongly influenced by Jupiter and Neptune, and also suggest that neither Uranus nor Neptune could have formed in their present positions, as too little primordial matter existed at that range to produce objects of such high mass. Instead, these planets are believed to have formed closer to Jupiter. Scattering of planetesimals early in the Solar System's history would have led to migration of the orbits of the giant planets: Saturn, Uranus and Neptune drifted outwards while Jupiter drifted inwards. Eventually, the orbits shifted to the point where Jupiter and Saturn reached an exact 2:1 resonance; Jupiter orbited the Sun twice for every one Saturn orbit. The gravitational repercussions of such a resonance ultimately disrupted the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, causing Neptune's orbit to become more eccentric and move outward into the primordial planetesimal disc, which sent the disc into temporary chaos.[37][38][39] As Neptune's orbit expanded, it excited and scattered many TNO planetesimals into higher and more eccentric orbits.[40] Many more were scattered inward, often to be scattered again and in some cases ejected by Jupiter. The process is thought to have reduced the primordial Kuiper belt population by 99% or more, and to have shifted the distribution of the surviving members outward.[39]

However, this currently most popular model, the "Nice model", still fails to account for some of the characteristics of the distribution and, quoting one of the scientific articles,[41] the problems "continue to challenge analytical techniques and the fastest numerical modeling hardware and software". The model predicts a higher average eccentricity in classical KBO orbits than is observed (0.10–0.13 versus 0.07).[39] The frequency of paired objects, many of which are far apart and loosely bound, also poses a problem for the model.[42]

Structure

File:Dust Models Paint Alien's View of Solar System.ogv
Dust in the Kuiper belt creates a faint infrared disc.

At its fullest extent, including its outlying regions, the Kuiper belt stretches from roughly 30 to 55 AU. However, the main body of the belt is generally accepted to extend from the 2:3 resonance (see below) at 39.5 AU to the 1:2 resonance at roughly 48 AU.[43] The Kuiper belt is quite thick, with the main concentration extending as much as ten degrees outside the ecliptic plane and a more diffuse distribution of objects extending several times farther. Overall it more resembles a torus or doughnut than a belt.[44] Its mean position is inclined to the ecliptic by 1.86 degrees.[45]

The presence of Neptune has a profound effect on the Kuiper belt's structure due to orbital resonances. Over a timescale comparable to the age of the Solar System, Neptune's gravity destabilises the orbits of any objects that happen to lie in certain regions, and either sends them into the inner Solar System or out into the scattered disc or interstellar space. This causes the Kuiper belt to possess pronounced gaps in its current layout, similar to the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt. In the region between 40 and 42 AU, for instance, no objects can retain a stable orbit over such times, and any observed in that region must have migrated there relatively recently.[46]

Classical belt

Between the 2:3 and 1:2 resonances with Neptune, at approximately 42–48 AU, the gravitational influence of Neptune is negligible, and objects can exist with their orbits essentially unmolested. This region is known as the classical Kuiper belt, and its members comprise roughly two thirds of KBOs observed to date.[47][48] Because the first modern KBO discovered, (15760) 1992 QB1, is considered the prototype of this group, classical KBOs are often referred to as cubewanos ("Q-B-1-os").[49][50] The guidelines established by the IAU demand that classical KBOs be given names of mythological beings associated with creation.[51]
The classical Kuiper belt appears to be a composite of two separate populations. The first, known as the "dynamically cold" population, has orbits much like the planets; nearly circular, with an orbital eccentricity of less than 0.1, and with relatively low inclinations up to about 10° (they lie close to the plane of the Solar System rather than at an angle). The second, the "dynamically hot" population, has orbits much more inclined to the ecliptic, by up to 30°. The two populations have been named this way not because of any major difference in temperature, but from analogy to particles in a gas, which increase their relative velocity as they become heated up.[52] The two populations not only possess different orbits, but different colors; the cold population is markedly redder than the hot. If this is a reflection of different compositions, it suggests they formed in different regions. The hot population is believed to have formed near Jupiter, and to have been ejected out by movements among the gas giants. The cold population, on the other hand, has been proposed to have formed more or less in its current position, although it might also have been later swept outwards by Neptune during its migration,[2][53] particularly if Neptune's eccentricity was transiently increased.[39] Although the Nice model appears to be able to at least partially explain a compositional difference, it has also been suggested the color difference may reflect differences in surface evolution.[39]

Resonances

Distribution of cubewanos (blue), Resonant trans-Neptunian objects (red) and near scattered objects (grey).
Orbit classification (schematic of semi-major axes)

When an object's orbital period is an exact ratio of Neptune's (a situation called a mean motion resonance), then it can become locked in a synchronised motion with Neptune and avoid being perturbed away if their relative alignments are appropriate. If, for instance, an object is in just the right kind of orbit so that it orbits the Sun twice for every three Neptune orbits, and if it reaches perihelion with Neptune a quarter of an orbit away from it, then whenever it returns to perihelion, Neptune will always be in about the same relative position as it began, because it will have completed 1½ orbits in the same time. This is known as the 2:3 (or 3:2) resonance, and it corresponds to a characteristic semi-major axis of about 39.4 AU. This 2:3 resonance is populated by about 200 known objects,[54] including Pluto together with its moons. In recognition of this, the members of this family are known as plutinos. Many plutinos, including Pluto, have orbits that cross that of Neptune, though their resonance means they can never collide. Plutinos have high orbital eccentricities, suggesting that they are not native to their current positions but were instead thrown haphazardly into their orbits by the migrating Neptune.[55] IAU guidelines dictate that all plutinos must, like Pluto, be named for underworld deities.[51] The 1:2 resonance (whose objects complete half an orbit for each of Neptune's) corresponds to semi-major axes of ~47.7AU, and is sparsely populated.[56] Its residents are sometimes referred to as twotinos. Other resonances also exist at 3:4, 3:5, 4:7 and 2:5.[57] Neptune possesses a number of trojan objects, which occupy its L4 and L5 points; gravitationally stable regions leading and trailing it in its orbit. Neptune trojans are often described as being in a 1:1 resonance with Neptune. Neptune trojans typically have very stable orbits.

Additionally, there is a relative absence of objects with semi-major axes below 39 AU that cannot apparently be explained by the present resonances. The currently accepted hypothesis for the cause of this is that as Neptune migrated outward, unstable orbital resonances moved gradually through this region, and thus any objects within it were swept up, or gravitationally ejected from it.[58]

"Kuiper cliff"

Graph showing the numbers of KBOs for a given distance from the Sun. The plutinos are the "spike" at 39 AU, whereas the classicals are between 42 and 47 AU, the twotinos are at 48 AU, and the 5:2 resonance is at 55 AU.

The 1:2 resonance appears to be an edge beyond which few objects are known. It is not clear whether it is actually the outer edge of the classical belt or just the beginning of a broad gap. Objects have been detected at the 2:5 resonance at roughly 55 AU, well outside the classical belt; however, predictions of a large number of bodies in classical orbits between these resonances have not been verified through observation.[55]

Based on estimations of the primordial mass required to form Uranus and Neptune, as well as bodies as large as Pluto (see below), earlier models of the Kuiper belt had suggested that the number of large objects would increase by a factor of two beyond 50 AU,[59] so this sudden drastic falloff, known as the "Kuiper cliff", was completely unexpected, and its cause, to date, is unknown. In 2003, Bernstein and Trilling et al. found evidence that the rapid decline in objects of 100 km or more in radius beyond 50 AU is real, and not due to observational bias. Possible explanations include that material at that distance was too scarce or too scattered to accrete into large objects, or that subsequent processes removed or destroyed those that did.[60] Patryk Lykawka of Kobe University has claimed that the gravitational attraction of an unseen large planetary object, perhaps the size of Earth or Mars, might be responsible.[61][62]

Composition

The infrared spectra of both Eris and Pluto, highlighting their common methane absorption lines

Studies of the Kuiper belt since its discovery have generally indicated that its members are primarily composed of ices: a mixture of light hydrocarbons (such as methane), ammonia, and water ice,[63] a composition they share with comets.[64] The low densities observed in those KBOs whose diameter is known, (less than 1 g cm−3) is consistent with an icy makeup.[63] The temperature of the belt is only about 50 K,[65] so many compounds that would be gaseous closer to the Sun remain solid.

Due to their small size and extreme distance from Earth, the chemical makeup of KBOs is very difficult to determine. The principal method by which astronomers determine the composition of a celestial object is spectroscopy. When an object's light is broken into its component colors, an image akin to a rainbow is formed. This image is called a spectrum. Different substances absorb light at different wavelengths, and when the spectrum for a specific object is unravelled, dark lines (called absorption lines) appear where the substances within it have absorbed that particular wavelength of light. Every element or compound has its own unique spectroscopic signature, and by reading an object's full spectral "fingerprint", astronomers can determine what it is made of.

Initially, such detailed analysis of KBOs was impossible, and so astronomers were only able to determine the most basic facts about their makeup, primarily their color.[66] These first data showed a broad range of colors among KBOs, ranging from neutral grey to deep red.[67] This suggested that their surfaces were composed of a wide range of compounds, from dirty ices to hydrocarbons.[67] This diversity was startling, as astronomers had expected KBOs to be uniformly dark, having lost most of their volatile ices to the effects of cosmic rays.[68] Various solutions were suggested for this discrepancy, including resurfacing by impacts or outgassing.[66] However, Jewitt and Luu's spectral analysis of the known Kuiper belt objects in 2001 found that the variation in color was too extreme to be easily explained by random impacts.[69]

Although to date most KBOs still appear spectrally featureless due to their faintness, there have been a number of successes in determining their composition.[65] In 1996, Robert H. Brown et al. obtained spectroscopic data on the KBO 1993 SC, revealing its surface composition to be markedly similar to that of Pluto, as well as Neptune's moon Triton, possessing large amounts of methane ice.[70]

Water ice has been detected in several KBOs, including 1996 TO66,[71] 38628 Huya and 20000 Varuna.[72] In 2004, Mike Brown et al. determined the existence of crystalline water ice and ammonia hydrate on one of the largest known KBOs, 50000 Quaoar. Both of these substances would have been destroyed over the age of the Solar System, suggesting that Quaoar had been recently resurfaced, either by internal tectonic activity or by meteorite impacts.[65]

Mass and size distribution

Illustration of the power law.

Despite its vast extent, the collective mass of the Kuiper belt is relatively low. The total mass is estimated to range between a 25th and 10th the mass of the Earth[73] with some estimates placing it at one thirtieth of an Earth mass.[74] Conversely, models of the Solar System's formation predict a collective mass for the Kuiper belt of 30 Earth masses.[2] This missing >99% of the mass can hardly be dismissed, as it is required for the accretion of any KBOs larger than 100 km (62 mi) in diameter. If the Kuiper belt had always had its current low density these large objects simply could not have formed.[2] Moreover, the eccentricity and inclination of current orbits makes the encounters quite "violent" resulting in destruction rather than accretion. It appears that either the current residents of the Kuiper belt have been created closer to the Sun or some mechanism dispersed the original mass. Neptune's current influence is too weak to explain such a massive "vacuuming", though the Nice model proposes that it could have been the cause of mass removal in the past. Although the question remains open, the conjectures vary from a passing star scenario to grinding of smaller objects, via collisions, into dust small enough to be affected by solar radiation.[53]

Bright objects are rare compared with the dominant dim population, as expected from accretion models of origin, given that only some objects of a given size would have grown further. This relationship between N(D) (the number of objects of diameter greater than D) and D, referred to as brightness slope, has been confirmed by observations. The slope is inversely proportional to some power of the diameter D:
 \frac{d N}{d D} \propto D^{-q} where the current measures[75] give q = 4 ±0.5.
This implies that
N\propto D^{1-q}+\text{a constant}.
Less formally, there are for instance 8 (=23) times more objects in 100–200 km range than objects in 200–400 km range. In other words, for every object with the diameter of 1,000 km (621 mi) there should be around 1000 (=103) objects with diameter of 100 km (62 mi).

If q is 4 or less, the law would imply an infinite mass in the Kuiper belt. The true function N(D) obviously assumes only integer values, so the fractional values it gives for N at large D cannot be accurate. More accurate models find that the "slope" parameter q is in effect greater at large diameters and lesser at small diameters.[75] It seems that Pluto is somewhat unexpectedly large, having several percent of the total mass of the Kuiper belt. It is not expected that anything larger than Pluto exists in the Kuiper belt, and in fact most of the brightest (largest) objects at inclinations less than 5° have probably been found.[75]

Of course, only the magnitude is actually known, the size is inferred assuming albedo (not a safe assumption for larger objects).

Since January 2010, the smallest Kuiper belt object discovered to date spans 980 m across.[76]

Scattered objects

Comparison of the orbits of scattered disc objects (black), classical KBOs (blue), and 2:5 resonant objects (green). Orbits of other KBOs are gray.

The scattered disc is a sparsely populated region, overlapping with the Kuiper belt but extending as far as 100 AU and farther. Scattered disc objects (SDOs) travel in highly elliptical orbits, usually also highly inclined to the ecliptic. Most models of Solar System formation show both KBOs and SDOs first forming in a primordial comet belt, whereas later gravitational interactions, particularly with Neptune, sent the objects spiraling outward, some into stable orbits (the KBOs) and some into unstable orbits, becoming the scattered disc.[8] Due to its unstable nature, the scattered disc is believed to be the point of origin for many of the Solar System's short-period comets. Their dynamic orbits occasionally force them into the inner Solar System, becoming first centaurs, and then short-period comets.[8]

According to the Minor Planet Center, which officially catalogues all trans-Neptunian objects, a KBO, strictly speaking, is any object that orbits exclusively within the defined Kuiper belt region regardless of origin or composition. Objects found outside the belt are classed as scattered objects.[77] However, in some scientific circles the term "Kuiper belt object" has become synonymous with any icy minor planet native to the outer Solar System believed to have been part of that initial class, even if its orbit during the bulk of Solar System history has been beyond the Kuiper belt (e.g. in the scattered-disc region). They often describe scattered disc objects as "scattered Kuiper belt objects".[78] Eris, which is known to be more massive than Pluto, is often referred to as a KBO, but is technically an SDO.[77] A consensus among astronomers as to the precise definition of the Kuiper belt has yet to be reached, and this issue remains unresolved.

The centaurs, which are not normally considered part of the Kuiper belt, are also believed to be scattered objects, the only difference being that they were scattered inward, rather than outward. The Minor Planet Center groups the centaurs and the SDOs together as scattered objects.[77]

Triton

Neptune's moon Triton
 During its period of migration, Neptune is thought to have captured one of the larger KBOs and set it in orbit around itself. This is its moon Triton, which is the only large moon in the Solar System to have a retrograde orbit; it orbits in the opposite direction to Neptune's rotation. This suggests that, unlike the large moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, which are thought to have coalesced from spinning discs of material encircling their young parent planets, Triton was a fully formed body that was captured from surrounding space. Gravitational capture of an object is not easy; it requires some mechanism to slow the object down enough to be snared by the larger object's gravity. Triton may have encountered Neptune as part of a binary (many KBOs are members of binaries; see below); ejection of the other member of the binary by Neptune could then explain Triton's capture.[79] Triton is only slightly larger than Pluto, and spectral analysis of both worlds shows that they are largely composed of similar materials, such as methane and carbon monoxide. All this points to the conclusion that Triton was once a KBO that was captured by Neptune during its outward migration.[80]

Largest KBOs


Artistic comparison of Eris, Pluto, Makemake, Haumea, Sedna, 2007 OR10, Quaoar, Orcus, and Earth. Since the year 2000, a number of KBOs with diameters of between 500 and 1,500 km (932 mi), more than half that of Pluto, have been discovered. 50000 Quaoar, a classical KBO discovered in 2002, is over 1,200 km across. Makemake and Haumea, both announced on July 29, 2005, are larger still. Other objects, such as 28978 Ixion (discovered in 2001) and 20000 Varuna (discovered in 2000) measure roughly 500 km (311 mi) across.[2]

Pluto

The discovery of these large KBOs in similar orbits to Pluto led many to conclude that, bar its relative size, Pluto was not particularly different from other members of the Kuiper belt. Not only did these objects approach Pluto in size, but many also possessed satellites, and were of similar composition (methane and carbon monoxide have been found both on Pluto and on the largest KBOs).[2] Thus, just as Ceres was considered a planet before the discovery of its fellow asteroids, some began to suggest that Pluto might also be reclassified.
The issue was brought to a head by the discovery of Eris, an object in the scattered disc far beyond the Kuiper belt, that is now known to be 27% more massive than Pluto.[81] In response, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), was forced to define what a planet is for the first time, and in so doing included in their definition that a planet must have "cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit".[82] As Pluto shared its orbit with so many KBOs, it was deemed not to have cleared its orbit, and was thus reclassified from a planet to a member of the Kuiper belt.

Although Pluto is currently the largest KBO, there are two known larger objects currently outside the Kuiper belt that probably originated in it. These are Eris and Neptune's moon Triton (which, as explained above, is probably a captured KBO).

As of 2008, only five objects in the Solar System (Ceres, Eris, and the KBOs Pluto, Makemake and Haumea) are listed as dwarf planets by the IAU. However, 90482 Orcus, 28978 Ixion and many other Kuiper-belt objects are large enough to be in hydrostatic equilibrium; most of them will probably qualify when more is known about them.[83][84][85]

Satellites

Of the four largest TNOs, three (Eris, Pluto, and Haumea) possess satellites, and two have more than one. A higher percentage of the larger KBOs possess satellites than the smaller objects in the Kuiper belt, suggesting that a different formation mechanism was responsible.[86] There are also a high number of binaries (two objects close enough in mass to be orbiting "each other") in the Kuiper belt. The most notable example is the Pluto–Charon binary, but it is estimated that around 11% of KBOs exist in binaries.[87]

Exploration

Artist's conception of New Horizons at Pluto

On January 19, 2006, the first spacecraft mission to explore the Kuiper belt, New Horizons, was launched. The mission, headed by Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, will arrive at Pluto on July 14, 2015, and, circumstances permitting, will continue on to study another as-yet-undetermined KBO. Any KBO chosen will be between 40 and 90 km (25 to 55 miles) in diameter and, ideally, white or grey, to contrast with Pluto's reddish color.[88] John Spencer, an astronomer on the New Horizons mission team, says that no target for a post-Pluto Kuiper belt encounter has yet been selected, as they are awaiting data from the Pan-STARRS survey project to ensure as wide a field of options as possible.[89] The Pan-STARRS project, partially operational since May 2010,[90] will, when fully online, survey the entire sky with four 1.4 gigapixel digital cameras to detect any moving objects, from near-Earth objects to KBOs.[91] To speed up the detection process, the New Horizons team established Ice Hunters, a citizen science project that allowed members of the public to participate in the search for suitable KBO targets;[92][93][94] the project has subsequently been transferred to another site, Ice Investigators,[95] produced by CosmoQuest.[96]
The debris discs around the stars HD 139664 and HD 53143. The black central circle is produced by the camera's coronagraph, which hides the central star to allow the much fainter discs to be seen.

Other Kuiper belts

By 2006, astronomers had resolved dust discs believed to be Kuiper belt-like structures around nine stars other than the Sun. They 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.[97] Beyond this, 15–20% of solar-type stars have an observed infrared excess that is believed to indicate massive Kuiper-belt-like structures.[98] Most known debris discs around other stars are fairly young, but the two images on the right, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in January 2006, are old enough (roughly 300 million years) to have settled into stable configurations.
The left image is a "top view" of a wide belt, and the right image is an "edge view" of a narrow belt.[97][99] Supercomputer simulations of dust in the Kuiper belt suggest that when it was younger, it may have resembled the narrow rings seen around younger stars.[100]

Accelerating change

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