Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

The Solar System

The frontier beyond Neptune

Nature volume 387, pages 658–659 (1997)Cite this article

Until five years ago, Pluto was viewed as a lonely outpost at the edge of the Solar System. Then in September 1992, Dave Jewitt and Jane Luu1 discovered the first of a population of small objects beyond Neptune. These objects, which make up what has come to be known as the Kuiper belt, are in nearly-circular orbits that have remained largely unchanged since the formation of the outer planets2. In last week's Nature3, Luu et al. presented the discovery of a new type of trans-neptunian object, 1996TL66. It has an unusually eccentric orbit with a very large semimajor axis, and is probably one of the first of a population of objects that were scattered into this region by Neptune. Its discovery marks an important stage in our understanding of planet formation and the structure of the outer Solar System, and apparently confirms the existence of a ‘scattered disk’ — a new component of the Solar System predicted by Duncan and Levison in tomorrow's Science4.

Although speculation on the existence of the Kuiper belt dates back almost 50 years5,6, serious work on the topic did not start until Fernández7 invoked it as a possible source of the short-period comets (those with orbital periods of less than 200 years). Dynamical simulations8 showed that a comet belt beyond Neptune is the most plausible source for the low-inclination, Jupiter-family comets. The first Kuiper-belt object, an icy body about 250 km across, was discovered in 1992.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Creation of the scattered disk.

References

  1. Jewitt, D. & Luu, J. Nature 362, 730–732 (1993).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Weissman, P. R. & Levison, H. F. in Pluto (eds Stern, S. A. & Tholen, D. J. ) (Univ. Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ, in the press).

  3. Luu, J. et al. Nature 387, 573–575 (1997).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Duncan, M. J. & Levison, H. F. Science 276, 1670–1672 (1997).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Edgeworth, K. E. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 109, 600–609 (1949).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Kuiper, G. in Astrophysics: A Topical Symposium (ed. Hynek, J. A.) 357-424 (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1951).

  7. Fernández, J. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 192, 481–491 (1980).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Duncan, M., Quinn, T. & Tremaine, S. Astrophys. J. 328, L69-L73 (1988).

  9. Jewitt, D., Luu, J. & Chen, J. Astron. J. 112, 1225–1238 (1996).

    Google Scholar 

  10. Malhotra, R. Astron. J. 110, 420–429 (1995).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Levison, H. F., Stern, S. A. & Duncan, M. J. Icarus (submitted).

  12. Morbidelli, A. & Valsecchi, G. B. Icarus (in the press).

  13. Marsden, B. G. Minor Planet Electronic CircularsB19 (1997).

  14. Fernández, J. A. & Ip, W.-H. Icarus 58, 109–120 (1984).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, 80309, Colorado, USA

    Glen R. Stewart

Authors
  1. Glen R. Stewart
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Stewart, G. The frontier beyond Neptune. Nature 387, 658–659 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/42604

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/42604

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing