Table of Contents:

The Kuiper Belt:

- p. 3 What is the Kuiper Belt?

- p. 5 Mission 1

- p. 10 Mission 2

Oort Cloud:

- p. 15 What is the Oort Cloud?

- p. 18 Mission 1

- p. 22 Mission 2

Extra Information:

-p. 26

Children's Book:

 -p. 27

News Article:

-p. 28

Contributions:

-p. 29

Resources:

-p. 30

Youtube Video:

-p. 31

What is the Kuiper Belt?

The Kuiper Belt is a donut-shaped structure from the outer Solar System. It extends from the orbit of Neptune. The Kuiper Belt is made up of old residue from the Solar System's formation. There are bits of rock and ice, comets, and dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt..The most well-known object in the Kuiper Belt is the planet, Pluto. The Kuiper Belt is big and mysterious, but you can spot objects within it. 

Kuiper Belt Mission 1: Dawn

Dawn was a mission propelled by ion engines. The spacecraft was a journey of 6.9 billion kilometers (4.3 billion miles). In 2011, it arrived at Vesta orbiting the region between Mars and Jupiter. Then, in 2015, it orbited Ceres. This dwarf planet is in the Kuiper Belt. Telescopes focus and concentrate radiation from distant objects. Some will explore the first galaxies and formation of planetary systems. The Hubble Space Telescope had 206 of Hubble's orbits around Earth. With this, astronauts could visit periodically and install updates. The Kuiper Belt came from this. Pluto is in this destination. Next, we'll look at the significance of the Dawn mission.

How does the Dawn mission stand out?

1. Dawn showed how important location was to objects in the early Solar System forming and evolving

2. Dawn reinforced that dwarf planets hosted oceans

3. Dawn was the first Space mission to orbit two destinations

4. Dawn had a record breaking use of solar electric propulsion- 11,488.9 m/s (25,700 mph), 2.7x any prior spacecraft

Let's look at some things to know about Dawn.

What do we know from Dawn?

1. Dawn confirmed that Vesta is a parent of Howardites, Eucrites, and Diogenites

2. Vesta is small enough to have deeply scarred Rheasilvia impact and large enough to have iron core, and silicate mantle

3. Only dwarf planet with an ocean world where water and ammonia reacted with silicate rock

4. Organics were on Ceres' surface

Kuiper Belt Mission 2: New Horizons

The mission of the New Horizons craft was developed to collect images and data of the dwarf planet Pluto, as well as add information so that we could understand the edge of the Solar System. New Horizons would first go around Pluto and then enter into deeper Space to explore the Kuiper Belt.

New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006 with a targeted flyby of Pluto in July, 2006.

Prior to New Horizons, Pluto was at a distance that even the best telescopes could only offer a blurred grey image. Understanding Pluto was critical because we needed to know how it fit in with the other terrestrial and gas giant planets.

Pluto exists in the Kuiper Belt and the National Academy of Sciences has ranked exploration of the Kuiper Belt as a high priority. Pluto and Charon, its largest moon, are part of a third category of planets that are defined as “ice dwarfs.” These are dwarf planets that share the characteristic of having a solid surface with terrestrial planets, but a large portion of their mass is made up of icy material.

Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, the team for New Horizons discovered four additional moons of Pluto that were previously not known: Nix, Hydra, Styx, and Kerberos.

New Horizons Facts

What is Oort Cloud?

Oort Cloud is the most distant region of our solar system. Oort Cloud consist of a cloud of comets and other objects way beyond the orbits of Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. The Oort cloud is thought to be the remains of a disk made out of gas that surrounded the Sun long ago.  It is believed to be like a thick bubble around our solar system. The Oort cloud is so far away from us on Earth that it is nearly two light-years away! The objects in the Oort Cloud are believed to be made of ice. 

According to the theories of the late Dutch astronomer, Jan Oort, comets are born out of the debris left over from the birth of our little speck of the galaxy. The name Oort Cloud comes from Jan Oort!

Oort Cloud Mission 1: Stardust

Stardust was a NASA space mission to the comet P/Wild 2 that launched in 1999. During this mission, samples of dust were collected from the coma, which is an envelope around a comet, of the comet and studied. 

The Stardust was a boxy craft that carried two solar arrays, along with a 45.8 kg (101 lb) sample return capsule that was dropped into Earth's atmosphere, carrying samples of the comet and star dust that was collected.