AST 2002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud
Document Summary
Flat plane aligned with the plane of planetary orbits. Orbiting in the same direction as the planets. Oort cloud comets were closer to the sun but they were kicked out by gravitational interactions with jovian planets. Neptune orbits three times during the time pluto orbits twice & resonance prevents a collision. Pluto has more in common with comets than with the eight planets. Moon charon is nearly as large as pluto itself. Thin nitrogen atmosphere that refreezes onto the surface as pluto"s orbit takes it further from the sun. A major impact is only a matter of time.
