Often called our Solar System’s “final frontier,” The Kuiper Belt is located beyond the planets, just beyond the orbit of the planet Neptune . It is a mysterious belt of rubble left over by the formation of the outer planets, they are the most ancient objects in our solar system. It consists of lumps of icy material and organic compounds.
Its name originates from astronomer Gerard Kuiper who proposed the existence of the Kuiper Belt in 1951. However, It was discovered in 1992 by David Jewitt and Jane Luu. David Jewitt is a professor of astronomy at UCLA, born in 1958 and graduated in 1976 from The University of London and from the California Institute of Technology in 1980 and 1983 with an M. Sc and Ph. D in astronomy. His specific interest research topic included the trans-Neptunian Solar System (The zone where the Kuiper Belt was discovered). Jane Luu, born in 1963 graduated with a bachelor’s degree in astronomy in 1984 from Stanford University , after immigrating to the USA in 1975 from Vietnam
Working together after five years of observation into the solar system they discovered the first Kuiper Belt object by using the University of Hawaii
When the objects are first discovered they are given a temporary name. This name begins with the year it was sighted followed by the letter corresponding to the month it was discovered and in what order it was discovered. If the object is found to be significant it is then given a permanent name often linked to mythology.Neptune’s moon, Triton, is thought to be a captured Kuiper Belt object.
No spacecraft has reached the Kuiper Belt, but NASA has a New Horizons mission which aims to arrive at Pluto in 2015 (If the world doesn’t end in 2012) This may be able to travel further into the Kuiper Belt to explore this vast unknown region of our solar system.
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