Other
Scientific paper
Mar 1996
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996lpi....27.1409w&link_type=abstract
Lunar and Planetary Science, volume 27, page 1409
Other
3
Comets, Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud
Scientific paper
The solar system's inventory of comets is stored in two dynamically long-livedreservoirs, the Oort cloud at semimajor axes of ~3-100 x 10^3 AU, and theKuiperbelt at distances of 30 to ~100 AU, beyond the orbit of Neptune.Although the Oort cloud is not yet observationally accessible, the Kuiper belt is, and a total of 32 objects have been discovered in trans-Neptunian orbits as of the end of 1995 (Weissman and Levison 1996).In addition, ~30 cometary-sized objects have been detected in the Kuiper belt using the Hubble Space Telescope (Cochran et al. 1995).These discoveries, as well as other means of estimating the population of the Kuiper belt at various size ranges, make it possible to construct a size distribution for icy bodies in this region of the solar system.Since the Kuiper belt is the likely source of the short-period comets (Duncan et al. 1988) and because the long-period comets likely formed in the adjacent Uranus-Neptune zone, this size distribution may be applicable to cometary sized bodies in the Oort cloud as well as the Kuiper belt.
Levison Harold F.
Weissman Paul R.
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