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Kuiper belt object

   Also found in: Acronyms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.01 sec.
Kuiper belt object
n. Abbr. KBO
Any of the small icy bodies orbiting the sun in the Kuiper belt, generally having a diameter less than Pluto's. Pluto is a large Kuiper belt object that was probably captured in its present solar orbit by an encounter with the planet Neptune.

[After Gerard Kuiper (1905-1973), Dutch-born American astronomer who speculated about the existence of such bodies.]
ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun1.Kuiper belt object - any of many minor planets in the Kuiper belt outside the orbit of Neptune at the edge of the solar system
minor planet, planetoid - any of numerous small celestial bodies that move around the sun


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Haumea is already the only Kuiper Belt object known to be part of a collisional family--other chunks, besides the moons, are known to have been created when a large impactor, perhaps 500 kilometers in diameter, struck the once-larger dwarf planet in the distant past, Brown says.
The furthest planet orbits just inside a disk of dusty debris, similar to that produced by the comets of the Kuiper Belt objects of our solar system.
The International Astronomical Union adopted this definition in 2006 following the discovery in 2003 of Eris, a Kuiper Belt object larger than Pluto.
 
 
 
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