PowerPoint facts about the Trans-Neptunian region

1. THE TRANS-
NEPTUNIAN
FACTS ABOUT

2. THE KUIPER BELT
▸ Band of icy material found past the orbit of Neptune
▸ Extends approximately 30 to 55 times the distance from Earth to the
sun
▸ Home to hundreds of thousands of icy bodies larger than 60 miles (100
km) wide
▸ Contains an estimated trillion or more comets

3. PLUTO AND OTHER DWARF PLANETS IN
THE KUIPER BELT
▸ Pluto considered a dwarf planet
▸ Other dwarf planets include Makemake, Haumea, and Eris
▸ Quaoar is massive enough to be considered a dwarf planet but not
classified as such yet

4. EXPLORATION IN THE TRANS-
NEPTUNIAN REGION
▸ NASA’s New Horizons mission conducted first fly-by of the Pluto system
in 2015; continues to explore the Kuiper belt
▸ New Horizons will fly by the object 2014 MU69 on January 1, 2019

5. PLANET NINE
▸ Believed to orbit the sun at a distance 20 times farther than the orbit of
Neptune, and 600 times farther than the orbit of Earth from the sun
▸ Not actually seen by scientists; some astronomers debate its existence
▸ Its existence inferred by its gravitational effects on other objects in the
Kuiper Belt

6. THE HELIOSPHERE
▸ A vast, teardrop-shaped region past the Kuiper Belt at the edge of the
solar system
▸ Contains electrically charged particles given off by the sun
▸ Astronomers estimate that the limit of the heliosphere, called the
heliopause, is approximately 9 billion miles (15 billion km) from the sun

7. THE OORT CLOUD
▸ Beyond the Kuiper belt
▸ Theoretically extends between five and 100,000 astronomical units (AU)
▸ Contains up to two trillion icy bodies, according to NASA
▸ Sedna, approximately three-fourths the size of Pluto, is the first dwarf
planet to be discovered in the Oort Cloud
An astronomical unit is a unit of measurement equal to
the mean distance from the center of the earth to the
center of the sun (approximately 93 million miles or 150
million km)

8. TEST YOURSELF
▸ True or false: Pluto is found in the Kuiper Belt
▸ Name two other dwarf planets found in the Kuiper Belt
▸ Why is the existence of Planet Nine debated by scientists?
▸ What region of the solar system is considered furthest from the sun?