As of: March 13, 2024, 6:09 a.m
By: Bjarne Kommnick, Julian Mayr
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NASA's New Horizons spacecraft reveals unexplored aspects of the end of the solar system.
The Kuiper Belt could reach much further than thought.
Munich – Only a tiny fraction of what catches the eye when looking into the vastness of space, or is not visible, is considered well researched.
Space research is only gradually uncovering the secrets of areas of the universe that are relatively close to Earth.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft recently provided new insights that could revolutionize our understanding of the end of our solar system.
NASA said in a statement that the Kuiper Belt - the outermost zone of our solar system where hundreds of thousands of icy, rocky planetary building blocks exist - may be much larger than previously thought.
These findings were
published in the
Astrophysical Journal Letters .
New measurements from the Kuiper Belt contradict previous models
The beginning of the Kuiper Belt is about 60 times further from the Sun than Earth.
The Ventia Burney Student Dust Counter (SDC), an instrument for counting cosmic particles, has detected unexpectedly high amounts of dust on the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt.
These dust particles are tiny, frozen remnants of collisions between larger objects in the Kuiper Belt (KBOs) and the particles thrown up.
Recently, an “unexplained signal” was even discovered from a region outside our Milky Way.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has made interesting discoveries at the end of the solar system.
(Illustration) © Science Photo Library
The newly published measurements contradict previous scientific models, according to NASA.
Previously, it was thought that the KBO population and dust density should decrease within a billion miles.
However, the new data suggests that the outer edge of the main Kuiper Belt may extend a billion miles further than previously thought.
NASA probe provides evidence of another Kuiper Belt
A new theory even postulates the existence of a second, previously unknown belt.
"The idea that we may have discovered an extensive Kuiper Belt - with a whole new population of objects colliding and producing more dust - offers another clue to solving the mysteries of the solar system's most distant regions," said Alex Doner, lead author of the study and physics student at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“New Horizons is making the first direct measurements of interplanetary dust far beyond Neptune and Pluto, so any observation could lead to a discovery,” explains Doner.
The measuring instrument was designed and built by students at the University of Colorado Boulder under the guidance of professional engineers.
It can identify small dust grains formed by collisions between comets, asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects.
The "latest, surprising" results were collected over a three-year period as the New Horizons probe traveled 45 to 55 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun - one AU is the distance between Earth and the Sun, about 150 million kilometers .
NASA also recently made a mysterious discovery on a distant planet.
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It remains unclear how far dust particles reach at the end of the solar system
Previously it was assumed that the outer end of the belt would be at a distance of about 50 AU.
Based on parallel research with observatories such as Japan's Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, which has also discovered a number of KBOs, researchers now suspect that the end could be at a distance of 80 AU or even further.
The scientists are also looking for other possible reasons for the high dust levels.
It could be that the probe encountered short-lived ice particles that could not reach the inner parts of the solar system and were not taken into account in previous research.
According to an astrophysicist, there may even be unknown planets at the end of the solar system.
“These new science findings from New Horizons may be the first time a spacecraft has discovered a new population of bodies in our solar system,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder.
“I can't wait to see how far further these increased dust concentrations in the Kuiper Belt reach.” According to NASA, the probe is now on a second mission and should have enough fuel to travel well into the 40s at a distance of to operate more than 100 AU from the Sun.
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