🌍 The Kuiper belt begins slightly beyond the orbit of Neptune, 30 astronomical units from the Sun, and ends about 50 astronomical units from the Sun. But there is one thing about the Kuiper belt that is a huge mystery. Once we get to 50 astronomical units, the belt stops. It ends suddenly, something astronomers call the "Kuiper cliff". But then why this sudden change of environment?
This mystery can be answered through different hypotheses. It could be that the belt continues, but the objects become so small that we can't see them. But this idea does not fit with what we know about the formation of the solar system. Instead, because of the complex interactions of the orbits of the outer planets, we expect the objects to start growing again at this distance.
A more exciting idea is that the objects may have been attracted by the gravitational pull of an as yet unknown planet. Such a planet, which would be the ninth planet in the solar system, could be the size of Earth or Mars.
The possible existence of a "Planet 9" at a very great distance from the Sun thus brings back the question of the number of planets in our System. It is quite possible that other planets are located at large distances from our star, so that their perturbations on the surrounding objects have not yet been noticed.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to see anything from that far away, so the mystery is not over yet...


🔥 As a reminder, the videos are published on SUNDAYS at 6:00 PM.


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💥 Beyond Neptune:
- After the discovery of Pluto in 1930, scientists began to assume that it was not the most distant object in the solar system.
At that time, no telescope had been able to detect objects that small at such a distant distance, but there was plenty of circumstantial evidence for the existence of dwarf planets, asteroids, meteors, meteorites, comets, and other celestial bodies at the edges of our solar system.
Some scientists had their own ideas about what was lurking in that distant darkness. Most of these theories were based on the movement of comets.
On August 30, 1992, the first object in the Kuiper Belt, the asteroid belt beyond Pluto, was discovered. It was given the name "1992 QB1". Since then, thousands of similar objects have been discovered in the Kuiper Belt. Astronomers suggest that the hypothetical planet nine could also be hiding in this area.
It turns out that the limits of our solar system do not end here. There is another formation, and that is the Oort cloud.
Scientists believe that the objects in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud are remnants of the formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. Let's go and discover this mysterious remote region of the solar system and the secrets it may hide.

Since the 20th century, astronomers have been studying the inner region of our solar system, but even today what lies at its periphery is still not known with precision.
This mysterious area has become a source of exceptional discoveries for scientists, in recent decades, a number of space objects have been discovered there.
As the technology for space exploration advanced, astronomers began to discover trans-Neptunian objects.
Scientists were able to look beyond Neptune and discover a number of celestial bodies from the solar system in this previously unknown region.
The trans-Neptunian objects were found to orbit our star at a distance of more than 4.5 billion km. These objects form the Kuiper belt and further away, the Oort cloud.



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🎬 On the program today:
- 00:00 - Introduction
- 02:45 - History of exploration of the outer reaches of the solar system
- 03:54 - What's beyond Neptune?
- 05:58 - The Mysterious Kuiper Belt... (Pluto, Eris, Makémaké, Hauméa,
- 24:28 - Strange Transneptunian Objects... (Sedna, Quaoar, Orcus, Salacie, Varuna, Ixion)
- 33:11 - Why does the Kuiper belt suddenly end?
- 34:55 - The Enigma of the Oort Cloud
- 42:19 - Incredible Comets
- 49:09 - Where is the limit of the solar system?

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