Midmonth Check-In: July 2024 and the Kuiper Belt

     

  Introduction and Monthly Reminders   

   The first half of July has been hot! Utah experienced several days of record heat. Staying cool and hydrated has been a challenge. The heat sometimes creates miserable nights for observing. Nevertheless, the skies were mostly clear during the first two weeks, and I was able to capture a few deep sky images that I will share in a future post. 

    The morning after this post was made, Mars and Uranus could be seen less than 1° apart in the sky. There will still be a few close encounters between the Moon and outer planets during the second half of July. Mercury will also reach its greatest eastern elongation on the 22nd. The highlight comes on the 30th when the Southern Delta Aquariid Meteor Shower peaks.   

The Kuiper Belt

    The Kuiper Belt was theorized in a paper written by astronomer Kenneth Edgeworth in the 1940s and again in the 1950s by Gerard Kuiper. This region of our solar system is now known to officially exist and is home to many of the dwarf planets we hear so much about, like Pluto. Most of the objects in the Kuiper belt are much smaller than Pluto but vary widely in size.  

    The Kuiper Belt is thought to have formed about 4.6 billion years ago with the Sun and the rest of the solar system. It is even believed that Neptune may have prohibited another planet from forming in this area. Due to Neptune's gravity, objects in the Kuiper Belt often get nudged out of their otherwise peaceful orbit. These objects can sometimes be ejected from our solar system or flung towards the inner planets.   

    The Kuiper Belt is one of the largest structures in our solar system with its orbit extending between 30 AU (the distance of Neptune) to over 1,000 AU from the Sun. It is thought to be shaped like a classical donut, with the Sun and planets in the center hole. At this distance, it takes objects well over one hundred Earth years to make one complete trip around the Sun.

    Astronomers largely agree that the Kuiper Belt is slowly eroding away due to the gravity of Neptune and other objects outside the solar system disrupting the orbit of the smaller objects in this area. This disruption causes objects to smash into each other, creating smaller objects, or the rocky bodies get flung toward the Sun or ejected from the solar system altogether. Some of these objects are known as comets, which grow a tail as they approach the Sun, and others are just rocky bodies like asteroids. A newly discovered type of object, known as a centaur, looks like an asteroid but takes the form of a comet as it reaches the inner solar system. Centaurs typically have an orbit between Jupiter and Neptune. Not all comets come from the Kuiper Belt but instead reside in the Oort Cloud, which I will discuss during my August Midmonth Check-In.        

 

    Check back soon for my next post!

    

Now get outside and look up!