Editing Kuiper belt (section)

=== Discovery ===
[[File:Mauna Kea Summit 2021-06-16 33 (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|Telescopes atop [[Mauna Kea Observatories|Mauna Kea]]. The Kuiper belt was discovered with [[UH88]], which is the fourth from the left.]]
In 1987, astronomer [[David Jewitt]], then at [[MIT]], became increasingly puzzled by "the apparent emptiness of the outer Solar System".<ref name="qbee">{{cite journal |doi=10.1038/362730a0 |title=Discovery of the candidate Kuiper belt object 1992 QB1 |date=1993 |last1=Jewitt |first1=David |last2=Luu |first2=Jane |journal=Nature |volume=362 |issue=6422 |pages=730–732 |bibcode=1993Natur.362..730J|s2cid=4359389 }}</ref> He encouraged then-graduate student [[Jane Luu]] to aid him in his endeavour to locate another object beyond [[Pluto]]'s orbit, because, as he told her, "If we don't, nobody will."<ref name=Davies_2001/>{{rp|page=50}} Using telescopes at the [[Kitt Peak National Observatory]] in Arizona and the [[Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory]] in Chile, Jewitt and Luu conducted their search in much the same way as Clyde Tombaugh and Charles Kowal had, with a [[blink comparator]].<ref name=Davies_2001/>{{rp|page=50}} Initially, examination of each pair of plates took about eight hours,<ref name=Davies_2001/>{{rp|page=51}} but the process was sped up with the arrival of electronic [[charge-coupled device]]s or CCDs, which, though their field of view was narrower, were not only more efficient at collecting light (they retained 90% of the light that hit them, rather than the 10% achieved by photographs) but allowed the blinking process to be done virtually, on a computer screen. Today, CCDs form the basis for most astronomical detectors.<ref name=Davies_2001/>{{rp|pages=52, 54, 56}} In 1988, Jewitt moved to the Institute of Astronomy at the [[University of Hawaii]]. Luu later joined him to work at the University of Hawaii's 2.24&nbsp;m telescope at [[Mauna Kea]].<ref name=Davies_2001/>{{rp|pages=57, 62}} Eventually, the field of view for CCDs had increased to 1024 by 1024 pixels, which allowed searches to be conducted far more rapidly.<ref name=Davies_2001/>{{rp|page=65}} Finally, after five years of searching, Jewitt and Luu announced on 30 August 1992 the "Discovery of the candidate Kuiper belt object [[15760 Albion|1992 QB<sub>1</sub>]]".<ref name=qbee/> This object would later be named 15760 Albion. Six months later, they discovered a second object in the region, [[(181708) 1993 FW]].<ref>{{cite journal |title=1993 FW |author1=Marsden, B.S. |place=Minor Planet Center |bibcode=1993IAUC.5730....1L |date=1993 |author2=Jewitt, D. |author3=Marsden, B.G. |issue=5730 |page=1 |journal=IAU Circ.}}</ref> By 2018, over 2000&nbsp;Kuiper belts objects had been discovered.<ref name="Dyches">{{Cite web |url=https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/792/10-things-to-know-about-the-kuiper-belt |title=10&nbsp;Things to Know About the Kuiper Belt |last=Dyches |first=Preston |website=NASA Solar System Exploration |date=14 December 2018 |access-date=2019-12-01 |archive-date=10 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190110003110/https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/792/10-things-to-know-about-the-kuiper-belt |url-status=live }}</ref>

Over one thousand bodies were found in a belt in the twenty years (1992–2012), after finding {{mp|1992 QB|1}} (named in 2018, 15760 Albion), showing a vast belt of bodies in addition to Pluto and Albion.<ref name=":2">{{cite web |url=https://www.astrobio.net/also-in-news/the-kuiper-belt-at-20/ |title=The Kuiper Belt at 20 |date=2012-09-01 |website=Astrobiology Magazine |access-date=2019-12-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030081029/https://www.astrobio.net/also-in-news/the-kuiper-belt-at-20/ |archive-date=2020-10-30 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Even in the 2010s the full extent and nature of Kuiper belt bodies was largely unknown.<ref name=":2"/> Finally, the unmanned spacecraft [[New Horizons]] conducted the first KBO flybys, providing much closer observations of the Plutonian system (2015) and then [[Arrokoth]] (2019).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/surviving-encounter-beyond-pluto-nasa-probe-begins-relaying-view-kuiper-belt-object |title=Surviving encounter beyond Pluto, NASA probe begins relaying view of Kuiper belt object |last=Voosen |first=Paul |date=2019-01-01 |website=Science |publisher=AAAS |access-date=2019-12-01 |archive-date=8 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221008185849/https://www.science.org/content/article/surviving-encounter-beyond-pluto-nasa-probe-begins-relaying-view-kuiper-belt-object |url-status=live }}</ref>

Studies conducted since the trans-Neptunian region was first charted have shown that the region now called the Kuiper belt is not the point of origin of short-period comets, but that they instead derive from a linked population called the [[scattered disc]]. The scattered disc was created when Neptune [[Nice model|migrated outward]] into the proto-Kuiper belt, which at the time was much closer to the Sun, and left in its wake a population of dynamically stable objects that could never be affected by its orbit (the Kuiper belt proper), and a population whose [[apsis|perihelia]] are close enough that Neptune can still disturb them as it travels around the Sun (the scattered disc). Because the scattered disc is dynamically active and the Kuiper belt relatively dynamically stable, the scattered disc is now seen as the most likely point of origin for periodic comets.<ref name=book/>