Related papers: A hypothesis for the color diversity of the Kuiper…
Objects in the Kuiper belt are small and far away thus difficult to study in detail even with the best telescopes available at earth. For much of the early history of the Kuiper belt, studies of the compositions of these objects were…
Ever since the very first photometric studies of Centaurs and Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) their visible color distribution has been controversial. That controversy gave rise to a prolific debate on the origin of the surface colors of these…
We examine a large collection of low resolution near-infrared spectra of Kuiper belt objects and centaurs in an attempt to understand the presence of water ice in the Kuiper belt. We find that water ice on the surface of these objects…
Most comets are volatile-rich bodies that have recently entered the inner solar system following long-term storage in the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud reservoirs. These reservoirs feed several distinct, short-lived "small body"…
Dynamically excited objects within the Kuiper belt show a bimodal distribution in their surface colors, and these differing surface colors may be a tracer of where these objects formed. In this work we explore radial color distributions in…
Kuiper belt objects, such as Arrokoth, the probable progenitors of short-period comets, formed and evolved at large heliocentric distances, where the ambient temperatures appear to be sufficiently low for preserving volatile ices. By…
We present new optical broadband colors, obtained with the Keck 1 and Vatican Advanced Technology telescopes, for six objects in the inner classical Kuiper Belt. Objects in the inner classical Kuiper Belt are of interest as they may…
We present the first results of the Hubble Wide Field Camera 3 Test of Surfaces in the Outer Solar System (H/WTSOSS). The purpose of this survey was to measure the surface properties of a large number of Kuiper belt objects and attempt to…
The Classical Kuiper Belt is populated by a group of objects with low inclination orbits, reddish colors and usually belonging to a binary system. This so called Cold Classical Kuiper Belt is considered to have been formed in situ from…
Observations show that 100-km-class Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) can be divided in (at least) two color groups, hereafter red (R, g-i<1.2) and very red (VR, g-i>1.2), reflecting a difference in their surface composition. This is thought to…
The Kuiper Belt (KB) region of the solar system, stretching from 30 to at least 50 AU, contains Pluto-Charon, some ~105 Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) larger than 100 km in diameter, and myriad smaller bodies produced by collisions among KBOs…
Comets and small Kuiper belt objects are considered to be among the most primitive objects in the solar system as comets like C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp are rich in highly volatile ices like CO. It has been suggested that early in the solar system…
It has been observed that binary Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) exist contrary to theoretical expectations. Their creation presents problems to most current models. However, the inclusion of a third body (for example, one of the outer planets)…
The Colours of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (Col-OSSOS) measured the optical/NIR colours of a brightness-complete sample of Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs). Like previous surveys, this one found a bimodal colour distribution in…
An important testable prediction of dynamical instability models for the early evolution of the Solar System is that Jupiter Trojans share a source population with the Kuiper belt. Concrete evidence of this prediction remains elusive, as…
The surface characterization of Trans-Neptunian Binaries (TNBs) is key to understanding the properties of the disk of planetesimals from which these objects formed. In the optical wavelengths, it has been demonstrated that most equal-sized…
JWST has shown that CO2 and CO are common on the surfaces of objects in the Kuiper belt and have apparent surface coverages even higher than that of water ice, though water ice is expected to be significantly more abundant in the bulk…
Large Kuiper Belt Objects are conventionally thought to have formed out of a massive planetesimal belt that is a few thousand times its current mass. Such a picture, however, is incompatible with multiple lines of evidence. Here, we present…
The cold classical Kuiper belt objects have low inclinations and eccentricities and are the only Kuiper belt population suspected to have formed in situ. Compared with the dynamically excited populations, which exhibit a broad range of…
We present photometry and spectra of the large Kuiper belt object 2007 OR10. The data show significant near-infrared absorption features due to water ice. While most objects in the Kuiper belt with water ice absorption this prominent have…