The Oort Cloud is a theorized spherical cloud of predominantly icy planetesimals believed to surround the Sun to as far as halfway to the nearest star. It is thought to be the source of long-period comets. The Kuiper Belt is a disc-shaped region beyond Neptune's orbit populated by numerous icy bodies and extending from 30 to 50 AU from the Sun, including short-period comets and objects like Pluto. New Horizons is an unmanned spacecraft on a mission to conduct the first flyby and study of Pluto and to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper Belt objects after performing a flyby of Jupiter in 2007.
1. OORT CLOUD Overview Theorized by Jan Oort Extends from 5,000-100,000 AU’s Home to long-period comets Never been observed, only a theory Contains 0.1-2 trillion comets Edge of our solar system
3. Long-Period Comets Take over 200 years to orbit Fly into the inner solar system Caused by gravitational perturbation Hale-Bopp, Orbit:4200 years
4. Kuiper Belt OVERVIEW Discovered by Gerard Kuiper Just beyond Neptune Extends from 30-50 AU’s Home to short-period comets Objects in the Kuiper Belt: KBO’s +1,300 comets identified Mostly on the ecliptic plane
5. Short-Period Comets Orbit of less than 200 years Come from the Kuiper Belt Orbit the Sun Hale-Bopp, Orbit:4200 years
7. Pluto Average temperature: -230 calcius Surface: nitrogen, methane, carbon dioxide ices Moons: Charon, Nix, Hydra Is a key object in the New Horizons Mission Orbit: 248 years Charon couldn’t be seen until 1978
8. Sedna Farthest object discovered in the Kuiper Belt Orbit: 12,000 years Slightly smaller than Pluto 130 light hours from the Sun
10. Triton Neptune’s moon Geologically active with water and ammonia Was once a KBO On a decaying orbit with Neptune Will most likely form rings like Uranus
11. New Horizons Launched in Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida Traveling to the Kuiper Belt Tested Equipment at Jupiter Only the fifth spacecraft to travel inter-planet space
13. Bibliography "Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud." NASA. NASA, n.d. Web. 9 Feb 2011. <http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=KBOs&Display=OverviewLong>. Cessna, Abby. "Oort Cloud." Universe Today. N.p., 15 Jun 2009. Web. 9 Feb 2011. <http://www.universetoday.com/32522/oort-cloud/>. Arnett, Bill. "The Kuiper Belt and the OortCloud."Nine Planets. N.p., 18 Mar 2007. Web. Feb 9 2011. <http://nineplanets.org/kboc.html>. New Horizons. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Feb 2011. <http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php>. "Oort Cloud." The Internet Encyclopedia of Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Feb 2011. <http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/O/OortCloud.html>. Yoshida, Seiichi. "C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp)." G A R Y W. K R O N K ' S C O M E T O G R A P H Y. N.p., 1997. Web. 9 Feb 2011. <http://cometography.com/lcomets/1995o1.html>.
14. More Bibliography "largest Kuiper Belt objects." The Internet Encyclopedia of Science. Web. 9 Feb 2011. <http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/L/largest_Kuiper_Belt_objects.html>. "Journey to the Edge of the Solar System part 3."YouTube. Web. 9 Feb 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf3E3TbiqoM>. "New Horizons Halfway to Pluto ." NASA. Web. 9 Feb 2011. <http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html>.