Word: kuiper
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...instrumental in the discovery and subsequent research of the Kuiper Belt, which scientists believe is the source of short source comets. The belt of nearly 70,000 "trans-Neptunian" objects is believed to hold many clues to the formation of the solar system...
...shaped orbit, the eighth planet has been outermost since 1979 and will be through 1998. But astronomers suspect that the sun's family actually extends far beyond either of these two planets. Out there in the frigid darkness beyond any known planet, they believe, lies the Kuiper belt, a ring of dusty ice chunks that surrounds the solar system. Beyond that, astronomers say, is the similarly composed Oort cloud, which forms a vast sphere around our planetary system. The cloud stretches two light-years from the sun, halfway to Alpha Centauri, the next nearest star. Occasionally...
...vast comet nurseries were first proposed four decades ago, the only evidence for them has been indirect and theoretical. At last there is something concrete. A tiny reddish spot of light recorded on a sensitive electronic detector in Hawaii last month appears to be the first component of the Kuiper belt ever observed. The body, known for now as 1992 QB1, is about 200 km (120 miles) across, and a preliminary calculation puts it at more than 5.1 billion km (3.2 billion miles) away. That doesn't necessarily make it the most remote object in the solar system, since Pluto...
...contrast, the British are embarrassed by the direct approach, preferring humor. "British ads are funnier because the British themselves are funnier," says Dutch adman Bart Kuiper. One cheeky British spot, titled The Hopping Pecker, shows a cartoon image of a male organ knocking at a red heart-shaped door and being refused entry until it coifs a condom...
...world, and they are scrambling to find ways of viewing 1987A directly rather than vicariously through the reports of others. Says Laurence Peterson, of NASA's astrophysics division, host of the brainstorming meeting at Goddard: "Hundreds of scientists are working on ideas." One proposal: temporarily base NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory, which is aboard a customized Lockheed C-141 StarLifter, south of the equator. Flying at 40,000 ft., above most of the murk of the atmosphere, the Kuiper can turn its 36-in. infrared telescope on the supernova. It can be equipped with nearly a dozen other instruments that...