The Kuiper Belt

The Kuiper Belt is a huge ring in our solar system. It sits out past the planet Neptune. It is full of icy rocks, dust, and dwarf planets. Pluto lives in the Kuiper Belt. The area is very cold and very dark.

What Lives There

The Kuiper Belt has millions of small icy objects. Some are tiny, and some are as big as dwarf planets. Pluto, Haumea, and Makemake all live there. Many short comets also come from this region.

Pluto and its moon Charon, two icy worlds out past Neptune.
Pluto and its moon Charon, two icy worlds out past Neptune. (NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / Wikimedia Commons)

Exploring the Belt

The Kuiper Belt is very far from Earth. Only one spacecraft has flown through it. It is called New Horizons. It visited Pluto and then a small object named Arrokoth.

Fun Facts

  • The Kuiper Belt is much bigger than the asteroid belt.
  • It is named after astronomer Gerard Kuiper.
  • Some objects in the belt take hundreds of years to go around the Sun.

Did You Know?

Some scientists think a hidden planet, called Planet Nine, may hide out past the Kuiper Belt!