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Kuiper Belt Object, illustration
Kuiper Belt Object. Computer illustration of a rocky body lying in the Kuiper Belt, on the outer rim of the Solar System, 4 billion miles from the Sun (bright, centre). The Kuiper Belt is a collection of icy, rocky bodies that orbit the Sun at the outer region of the Solar System. It extends outwards from the orbit of Neptune, past the orbit of Pluto to about two times the Sun-Pluto distance. Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) range in size from small rocks to Pluto-sized objects. Unlike asteroids, KBOs have not been significantly heated by the Sun and so are thought to represent a pristine well preserved, deep-freeze sample of what the outer solar system was like following its birth 4.6 billion years ago.
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