Kuiper Belt - Structure

Structure

At its fullest extent, including its outlying regions, the Kuiper belt stretches from roughly 30 to 55 AU. However, the main body of the belt is generally accepted to extend from the 2:3 resonance (see below) at 39.5 AU to the 1:2 resonance at roughly 48 AU. The Kuiper belt is quite thick, with the main concentration extending as much as ten degrees outside the ecliptic plane and a more diffuse distribution of objects extending several times farther. Overall it more resembles a torus or doughnut than a belt. Its mean position is inclined to the ecliptic by 1.86 degrees.

The presence of Neptune has a profound effect on the Kuiper belt's structure due to orbital resonances. Over a timescale comparable to the age of the Solar System, Neptune's gravity destabilises the orbits of any objects which happen to lie in certain regions, and either sends them into the inner Solar System or out into the scattered disc or interstellar space. This causes the Kuiper belt to possess pronounced gaps in its current layout, similar to the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt. In the region between 40 and 42 AU, for instance, no objects can retain a stable orbit over such times, and any observed in that region must have migrated there relatively recently.

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