While astronomers and cosmologists strive to explore the early stages of all life, there is still much we do not know about our stellar neighborhood.
We understand that Earth orbits the Sun and that our star is home to eight full-fledged planets. However, astronomers still have only a vague idea of what lies beyond Neptune. In 1951, Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper proposed the hypothesis that there should be a belt of objects beyond the most distant planet, a prediction that was confirmed in 1992 with the discovery of the Kuiper Belt.
Evidence is now mounting that a second Kuiper Belt may extend even beyond the first.
“The Kuiper Belt in our Solar System has long seemed very small compared to many other planetary systems,” said Wes Fraser, the lead author of the study from the National Research Council of Canada. “But our results suggest that this perception may have arisen from observational biases. Therefore, if this result is confirmed, our Kuiper Belt may not be so small and unusual compared to belts around other stars.”