Scientific Explorer - Astronomy

Author: None
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-02-01
Features: Widely used comprehensive science textbook in American high schools, the best reference book for new curriculum standards, new concepts, and new learning methods. Explore the mysteries of science, guide inquiry-based learning, emphasizing knowledge, skills, and methods, making it fun to learn by doing.
Jeanne Luk is observing objects beyond the outer planets of the solar system, which is a ring composed of millions of ice rock fragments orbiting the sun. Luk and her collaborator David Jewitt first discovered these objects in 1992. The rocky Pluto is the largest object in this ring, which is called the Kuiper Belt. Pluto and approximately 3,000 other objects move through space together; Luk and Jewitt refer to these objects as the Plutinos. Some objects in the Kuiper Belt can escape and move closer to the sun. The sun's heat makes them glow and turn into comets.