the vast cold and mysterious region of our solar system known as the kuiper belt could
potentially hold many secrets to the origins of our world it is that part of space that we have
only now begun to explore and it's proving to be even more intriguing than previously thought
besides bits of rocks and ice the belt is filled with dwarf planets and comets
and some very strange objects welcome to Factnomenal and in today's video we will
explore the darkness and expense of the kuiper belt as we try to unravel more of its mysteries
one of the most mysterious places of our solar system also happens to be the largest structure
yet besides the oort cloud and magnetosphere of jupiter home to rocks ice comets dwarf planets
and other strange objects the inner edge of the kuiper belt begins right at the orbit of neptune
and is around 30 astronomical units away from the sun making the region a dark and chilling one
shaped and puffed up like a doughnut the icy objects in the belt could be remnants
of the main asteroid belt and jupiter however some are just too unusual to fit that theory
everyone's favorite ex-planet pluto happens to be an inhabitant of the kuiper belt
other dwarf planets can also be found within the region each with their own satellites as well
the objects in the belt are simply now referred to as kbos or kuiper belt objects it also happens
to be a source of comets as it slowly erodes but perhaps the most mind-blowing thing about it all
is that for decades scientists had absolutely no idea that they had ever discovered the kuiper belt
it's only when they began studying pluto more closely is when they came to the realization
that pluto isn't the cold lonely planet we once thought it to be and has many neighbors in a
completely different locality so far more than 2 000 kbos have been identified and researchers have
discovered some truly strange anomalies that make the kuiper belt a very interesting place indeed
there lies an object in the kuiper belt that seems to be on a completely different trajectory
and has raised many questions that scientists and astronomers are still not able to answer
the ominous object has been named aron after the celtic god of war a powerful magician and a master
hunter not bad as far as names go iran has been an object of speculation though owing to the way it
has been turning most of the objects in the belt are made up mostly of rock and ice but with the
way aron has been moving it has caused scientists to question whether it could possibly be made of
something entirely different the rate at which it's rotating is so fast that the centrifugal
force should actually tear it apart but this has not been the case after observing the object
researchers are now considering if there could be alien activity involved
when new horizons tried to get a closer look at the object the transmissions were
immediately cut off almost inexplicably scientists have theorized that it could be because someone or
something out there is monitoring us and does not want us getting any closer
because it could quite possibly be an extraterrestrial spacecraft this might
seem like a stretch but a group of researchers are working to solve the mystery around aron and
if we have finally found solid evidence of extraterrestrials lying in the kuiper belt
lying about a billion miles away from pluto is the peanut-shaped object ultimately it is the farthest
place that has ever been visited by humans or in this case through the new horizon spacecraft
ultimatuly is a very cold icy little world receiving approximately 1900 times less sunlight
than our planet earth alan stern investigator for the new horizons mission stated we have never seen
something that was primordial so unchanged since the early formation days it is a contact binary
object with lightly cratered regions and latches of brightness consisting mainly of two lobes that
each form separately through the accumulation of small particles of gas and dust which only
fuse together much later the larger lobe is called ultima while tule is the comparatively smaller one
as of november 2019 it was officially named arakov the two have been observed to even come
together in an unusual way it doesn't look like the two have experienced any collisions or violent
mergers instead scientists say that the two come together traveling only a few miles per hour
kind of like a gentle kiss as for satellites it seems like arakoth is flying solo new horizons has
not been able to spot rings or satellites which makes the object stand out even more besides the
object is unusually flat and also appears to have ice water but with freezing temperatures being so
far away from the sun and all it doesn't seem to be abundant the new horizons mission might just do
another flyby of the object on its journey around pluto and other ice worlds in the kuiper belt
the kuiper belt may be known for its many comets and dwarf planets but there
is a set of twins in the kuiper belt that are proving to be quite the attention seeking pair
named antifallas and antifallas the twins take 25 to 30 years to actually orbit each other
and 290 years for the binary system to orbit the sun 2001 qw 322 as they are officially called is
a highly split kuiper belt pair orbiting around each other the fact that the two are basically
identical is nothing mind-blowing in and of itself but rather the orbital distance is extremely rare
to put that into perspective imagine two baseballs in deep space that are bound gravitationally in a
binary system they would have an orbital distance of say 124 miles compare that to the 2001 qw
322 pair that are separated by 77 671 miles they have been given the special name antipholus after
the twin characters from william shakespeare's earliest plays the comedy of errors based on the
mistaken identity of two sets of twins it is true that the two are very difficult to distinguish
apart and astronomers have to be extremely mindful while studying them to know which is which
on december 28 2004 astronomers found what they believed to be the weirdest object yet
among the litter of dwarf planets and objects in the kuiper belt lies what looks like a potato the
minor planet haumia named in honor of its hawaiian discovery is about one-third the mass of pluto its
peculiar shape has many guessing whether it looks more like a potato floating in space or more like
a squashed cigar either way the strange object could actually be extremely useful in shedding
some light on the history of the collisions that have taken place in the solar system astronomers
were astonished when they discovered the giant space potato is getting brighter and fainter by
roughly 25 every two hours owing to its elongated shape the object is moving at a spectacular speed
and actually holds the title for the fastest rotating large object in our solar system
scientists believe it's this rapid spin that is responsible for distorting haumea's shape to give
you an idea of just how fast it actually moves a day on haumea would only be four hours haumea also
has two moons of its own namako and hiyaka and it became the first known object in the kuiper
belt to have rings there is much debate though whether it could be even considered a minor planet
everything we know about the mysterious object is from ground-based telescopes and until we have
further flybys and missions to the kuiper belt the space potato will continue to be a mystery
there has been a long-standing theory about the existence of planet nine sorry pluto we don't
mean you this is the hypothetical planet that scientists and astronomers have been speculating
about for years now though the so-called planet has not directly been observed these predictions
actually come from the gravitational effects that have been observed in other objects in the belt
scientist duo scott shepard from the carnegie institute for science in washington dc
and chadwick trujillo of northern arizona university have together found 62 distant
objects accounting for about 80 percent of the objects discovered at the edge of the solar system
they are actively on the hunt for the infamous planet x now another pair of scientists from
caltech michael brown and konstantin battigan have published their own study which suggests that a
planet about the mass of neptune and orbiting the sun about 20 times farther than neptune
could be the real reason for the gravitational nudge causing all these small objects to orbit
in the kuiper belt in their own words they claim that the more that they can find the better we
will all be able to understand the outer parts of the solar system and could potentially help
redefine our knowledge of the system's evolution with the new horizon spacecraft still in orbit
it's quite possible we might discover the hypothetical planet sooner than we think
nasa's new horizon spacecraft made history as being the first and only craft to visit the kuiper
belt the mission has actually shown us why we should be exploring our solar system more closely
and as of today the new horizon spacecraft is still actively making its way all around the
edge of our solar system and showing us just how truly bizarre space is
scientists are now looking into the possibility of sending more probes and doing flybys of the belt
specifically more detailed orbital reconnaissance missions rather than direct missions to the region
for now we can only imagine what more could be lurking at the edge of the solar system in the
dark and cold expanse of the kuiper belt so what do you think scientists will discover next in the
kuiper belt tell us in the comments below don't forget to smash that like button and subscribe to
the channel for more space related videos thanks for watching we'll see you in the next video
you