Population of the Scattered Kuiper Belt

Population of the Scattered Kuiper Belt.

We present the discovery of three new scattered Kuiper Belt objects (SKBOs) from a wide-field survey of the ecliptic. This continuing survey has to date covered 20.2 deg2 to a limiting red magnitude of 23.6. We combine the data from this new survey with an existing survey conducted at the University of Hawaii 2.2 m telescope to constrain the number and mass of the SKBOs. The SKBOs are character...

The origin of the Kuiper Belt high–inclination population

I simulate the orbital evolution of the four major planets and a massive primordial planetesimal disk composed of 10 objects, which perturb the planets but not themselves. As Neptune migrates by energy and angular momentum exchange with the planetesimals, a large number of primordial Neptune-scattered objects are formed. These objects may experience secular, Kozai, and mean motion resonances th...

The Kuiper Belt

Discovery of a Planetary-sized Object in the Scattered Kuiper Belt

We present the discovery and initial physical and dynamical characterization of the object 2003 UB313. The object is sufficiently bright that for all reasonable values of the albedo it is certain to be larger than Pluto. Prediscovery observations back to 1989 are used to obtain an orbit with extremely small errors. The object is currently at aphelion in what appears to be a typical orbit for a ...

Kepler and the Kuiper Belt

The proposed field-of-view of the Kepler mission is at an ecliptic latitude of ∼ 55, where the surface density of scattered Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) is a few percent that in the ecliptic plane. The rate of occultations of Kepler target stars by scattered KBOs with radii r & 10 km is ∼ 10 − 10 star yr, where the uncertainty reflects the current ignorance of the thickness of the scattered KBO d...