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Does the Kuiper Belt have an edge?

Does the Kuiper Belt have an edge?. Ming-Chang Liu. Introduction. Kuiper Belt, a thick band of small bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune, has an extended range from 30 AU to 50 AU.

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Does the Kuiper Belt have an edge?

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  1. Does the Kuiper Belt have an edge? Ming-Chang Liu

  2. Introduction • Kuiper Belt, a thick band of small bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune, has an extended range from 30 AU to 50 AU. • Importance: It reserves the extremely pristine materials from the early solar system. Furthermore, it’s widely accepted as a new home for short-period comets.

  3. History • Edgeworth & Kuiper. • What happens between 30~50 AU? • Hard to detect! Stern (1996)

  4. Discovery of KBOs • 1992 Jane Luu and David Jewitt: 1992 QB1, 23 magnitude, 43 AU away. • Now, more than 900 objects have been found in this region.

  5. Jewitt (1999) From Jewitt, (2000) Orbit distributions of KBOs • Classical KBO: circular orbit, extending to 50 AU. Some of them have high inclination. (up to 30 degree) • Scattered KBO: largely eccentric orbit, extending to ~200 AU. • Plutino: in or near the 3:2 mean motion resonance (the same as Pluto) with Neptune.

  6. The Edge of the Kuiper Belt • The classical Kuiper Belt stops at ~ 50 AU. • But, is this a real edge? • Observations show that no object was found beyond ~49 AU. (Trujillo et al., 2001; Allen et al., 2001) • Or it’s due to the observational limitation to detect (small or faint) objects beyond 50 AU?

  7. Beyond the Edge • What’s beyond 50 AU? • Scattered KBOs. • Distant population of small bodies on near-circular orbits with inclination? • If something dwells beyond 50 AU, can we detect them? YES!

  8. TAOS • Taiwan-America Occultation Survey.

  9. Conclusion • Whether Kuiper Belt has an edge is still uncertain; however, observation results favor the existence of the edge. • But this conclusion may be overthrown!

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