User:AstroMark/wip/KB definitions
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[edit] Kuiper Belt definitions
On this page I intend to keep a list of the various definitions for the Kuiper Belt and Transneptunian region that I find in the literature. Please feel free to add to the list – most recent publications first.
Gladman, Marsden, VanLaerhoven, 2008, "Nomenclature in the Outer Solar System", in the book "Solar System Beyond Neptune":
The term transneptunian region and the Kuiper belt become the same and the transneptunian region becomes defined as the union of the classical belt, SDO/detached populations and the resonant objects exterior to the Neptune trojans.
They also define comets and the Oort cloud as being separate from this region and SD being the scattering disk rather than scattered disk to make the point that we are defining the objects by their current orbital properties rather than their past history.
Delsanti and Jewitt, 2006, "The Solar System Beyond the Planets", in the book "Solar System Update" (pdf):
They define the sub-groups of the Kuiper belt as:
- Resonant objects
- Classical Kuiper belt
- Scattered objects
- Detached objects
The Minor Planet Center distinguishes between "Trans-Neptunian objects" (classical and resonant KBOs) and Scattered objects (SDOs and Centaurs) [1]
Alessandro Morbidelli and Harold F Levison in Kuiper Belt Dynamics Chapter 32 of the Encyclopedia of the Solar System (2007) state that "The Kuiper Belt is generically referred to as a population of small bodies the majority of which have a semi-major axis, and thus an orbital period, larger than those of Neptune." However, later in the same text, the authors say that, "The existence of the Scattered Disc suggests that we should reserve the name "Kuiper Belt" for the population of objects that do not suffer encounters with Neptune and therefore have orbits that either do not significantly change with time or do so very slowly."
