Abstract
Beginning at about the orbit of Neptune drifts a family of objects that area relics of the most ancient times, fossils of early planetary formation preserved in a deep freeze (Fig. 9.1). The region is called the Kuiper Belt. This vast donut of material is twenty times as wide as the Asteroid Belt and two hundred times as massive. It extends from 30 AU (at about the orbit of Neptune) to 50 AU, far beyond our main family of planets. It is the place left behind, the dregs of the solar nebula that remained at the outskirts as the inner solar nebula warmed and condensed into the planets and moons we see today.
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Notes
- 1.
Astrophysical Journal, 328: L69-L73, 1988 May 15.
- 2.
The observatory had a naming contest; the name was suggested by 11-year-old English school girl Venetia Burney of Oxford.
- 3.
Planets by Carl Sagan, Jonathan Norton Leonard and the Editors of Life; Life Science Library, Time/Life books, ©1966.
- 4.
The diameter of Earth’s Moon is 3474 km.
- 5.
Planetary Science Decadal Survey of 2003–2013.
- 6.
Other applicants had good track records, too, but the competition for NASA dollars is stiff.
- 7.
This was necessary because the spacecraft had to slew to carry out its various observations, thus pointing its primary antenna away from Earth.
- 8.
Although Pluto has been reclassified as a dwarf planet or ice dwarf, its complexity challenges the concept, and many in the planetary science community suggest that it should be reinstated as a traditional planet. For our purposes, we will use the term interchangeably.
- 9.
Pluto’s last perihelion, or closest approach to the Sun, was on September 5, 1989.
- 10.
As of 2019, many features on Pluto still await formal naming.
- 11.
The largest glacier on Earth, the Lambert Glacier, is 100 km wide, 400 km long, and 2500 m deep. It drains 8% of the entire Antarctic ice sheet.
- 12.
Recent Cryovolcanism in Virgil Fossae on Pluto, Cruikshank et al, Icarus 330, 2019.
- 13.
The first researcher to set eyes upon the distant object was minor planet hunter Marc Buie of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
- 14.
In 1698, Tsar Peter imposed a tax on beards.
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Carroll, M. (2019). Pluto, “Ultima Thule,” and the Lords of the Dark Realm. In: Ice Worlds of the Solar System. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28120-5_9
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