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A possible long-lived belt of objects between Uranus and Neptune

Nature volume 387, pages 785–788 (1997)Cite this article

Abstract

Recent discoveries of objects orbiting beyond Neptune1,2,3,4,5 have emphasized that our understanding of the distribution and dynamics of material in the outer Solar System is very incomplete. This trans-neptunian population—known as the Kuiper belt—is thought to act as a relatively stable reservoir of objects that could become short-period comets6,7,8,9, although there may be other regions of stability in the outer Solar System that could also supply such comets. Here I use numerical simulations to identify one such long-lived region between the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. I show that in the region 24–27AUfrom the Sun, about 0.3 per cent of an initial population of small bodies moving on low-eccentricity, low-inclination orbits could survive for the age of the Solar System. The actual existence of this hypothetical belt is not precluded by currently available observational limits, and there could be as much as ∼5 × 10−4 Earth masses of material populating this region—comparable to the mass of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

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Figure 1: Time survived by each test particle as a function of initial semimajor axis.
Figure 2: Results of additional simulations of the region between Uranus and Neptune.
Figure 3: The solid line marks the number of test particles remaining as a function of integration time, for those particles started in the i.

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Acknowledgements

I thank N. Murray and S. Tremaine for discussions, S. Dermott and H. Levison for reviews of the manuscript, and J. Wisdom for computer time for the simulations.

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  1. Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, McLennan Physical Laboratories, University of Toronto, 60 St George Street, Toronto, M5S 3H8, Ontario, Canada

    Matthew J. Holman

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Correspondence to Matthew J. Holman.

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Holman, M. A possible long-lived belt of objects between Uranus and Neptune. Nature 387, 785–788 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/42890

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