February 2016
Is Jupiter Really Our Protective Shield?
...reduced masses have, ‘effectively removed’ the Jupiter ‘barrier’ that must be penetrated by both Oort cloud and Kuiper belt comets if they are to achieve Earth-crossing orbits …’ [19] The term ‘Jupiter barrier’ has a connotation in planetary dynamics...
02 December 2015
Displaced dusty planet booted out of its birthplace
...of researchers as surrounding its young host star is a lopsided comet belt. Such a feature is regarded by some astronomers to be an ...its infant days. It is suggested that our own belt of comets, the Kuiper belt, lost a large fraction of its mass as it...
18 October 2021
NASA's Lucy mission launches, encounters problem with solar panel
... of these, Lucy will target eight of them; a Main Belt asteroid and seven Trojans, four of which are binary systems. ... dark-red P- and D-type Trojans resemble those found in the Kuiper Belt of icy bodies that extends beyond the orbit of Neptune. The...
22 June 2016
Does a subsurface ocean exist on Pluto?
... ocean habitats so far from the sun on Pluto – and that the same could also be possible on other Kuiper belt objects as well – is absolutely incredible,” remarked Hammond.
09 September 2016
OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on its way to study Bennu after successful launch Thursday
... New Frontiers mission, New Horizons, was recently extended by NASA, allowing the mission to fly through the Kuiper Belt in January 2019. The fourth New Frontiers mission will be selected by competition, with the final competition details...
20 March 2017
Scientists challenge how planets are defined
...-Neptunian objects, as Pluto is constrained in its orbit by the gravity of Neptune and it shares its orbital neighbourhood with Kuiper belt objects. But, based on that last aspect it could be reasoned that the IAU definition also excludes Earth...
