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back to article Today's good news is that whoever has to clean up Solar System will have an easy job: Lack of small debris in Kuiper belt

The Solar System's Kuiper belt, a donut-shaped pile up of debris extending beyond Neptune, contains a surprisingly lack of small objects, judging from images of Pluto and its moon Charon. The pics were taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which blasted off from Earth in 2006, and made it out to the edges of the Solar …

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  1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Boffin

    This Kuiper belt object is small, but that object is far far away

    Is it not possible that the lack of impacts is down more to a large search space and a relatively low density of objects to impact. I mean, we're looking at a space maybe a quarter of a light-year or more across... but I am not an astronomer, so what do I know?

    0 2 Reply
    1. Spherical Cow Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: This Kuiper belt object is small, but that object is far far away

      More like one thousandth of a light year, but even so I see what you are trying to say.

      The thing is, we can see lots of large objects, we can see evidence of lots of large & medium object impacts, but the evidence of small object impacts is missing: not many small craters. So, not many small objects out there, relatively speaking.

      2 0 Reply
      1. phuzz Silver badge
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        Boffin

        Re: This Kuiper belt object is small, but that object is far far away

        I was wondering if it was because all the objects in the Kuiper belt are heading in roughly the same orbit, at roughly the same velocity, hence collisions are rare. Any in divergent orbits being likely to be deflected down to the inner solar system to cause problems for the dinosaurs.

        (this is all just guesswork)

        0 0 Reply
        1. Mike Moyle
          Reply Icon

          Re: This Kuiper belt object is small, but that object is far far away

          "

          I was wondering if it was because all the objects in the Kuiper belt are heading in roughly the same orbit, at roughly the same velocity, hence collisions are rare. Any in divergent orbits being likely to be deflected down to the inner solar system to cause problems for the dinosaurs."

          But your description also describes the asteroid belt, which appears to have more objects in close proximity to each other, and further perturbations from planets passing by (far away from them in human terms, but intimately close in cosmic terms).

          My (uneducated) guess is the likelihood -- if the "quick-clumping" theory is correct -- that the orbital perturbations from moving planetary gravity fields kept the asteroid belt objects "stirred up" enough that there was less clumping from the particles' own, innate gravities, while out in the Kuiper belt, there was less stirring, allowing the particles to cluster more quickly.

          FWIW.

          1 0 Reply

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Francis Boyle Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: This Kuiper belt object is small, but that object is far far away

      Space is big, time is long! (I sorta think The Guide should have mentioned the latter bit.)

      1 0 Reply
  2. defiler

    Lack of small debris in Kuiper belt

    Just wait until my kids pour their Lego out again. Gets bloody everywhere...

    6 0 Reply
  3. hplasm
    Holmes

    Pluto-

    It would clear it's orbit- if there was stuff to clear... so it IS a planet!

    yay!

    1 1 Reply
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I would have thought that the nature of the solar system evolution applies out past Neptune, but on a different scale. So all the smaller objects have already clumped together with each other to form mid-to-large range objects over the last 5bn or so years. If we accept that the asteroid belt was formed by a failed/destroyed planet, then that would effectively be starting again - so would be 3-4bn years behind the processes that formed the KBOs.

    Also I understand that a lot of material at the outer reaches would be perturbed and knocked towards the sun (comets etc), getting gobbled up the inner planets.

    0 0 Reply
  5. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Messrs Bodgitt and Runn will be bidding for the contract to clean up all that rubbish round the Earth and then fly-tip it out there.

    0 0 Reply
  6. SNAFUology
    Meh

    Study reveals secret origins of asteroids and meteorites

    "Study reveals secret origins of asteroids and meteorites

    July 2, 2018

    Stephenie Livingston

    photographer: Illustration by Don Davis, video by Brianne Lehan"

    "The study appearing online today in Nature Astronomy found at least 85 percent of 200,000 asteroids in the inner asteroid belt — the main source of Earth’s meteorites — originate from five or six ancient minor planets. The other 15 percent may also trace their origins to the same group of primordial bodies, said Stanley Dermott, lead author and a theoretical astronomer at the University of Florida."

    Link:http://news.ufl.edu/articles/2018/06/study-reveals-secret-origins-of-asteroids-and-meteorites.php

    Website: http://news.ufl.edu/

    Original Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0482-4

    0 0 Reply

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