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Kuiper Belt - NASA Science

The Kuiper Belt

The Kuiper Belt is a doughnut-shaped region of icy objects beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is home to Pluto and most of the known dwarf planets and some comets.

This artist's impression is of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft encountering Arrokoth, a Kuiper Belt object that orbits one billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto, on Jan. 1, 2019.

Kuiper Belt Facts

The Kuiper Belt is a large, doughnut-shaped region of icy bodies extending far beyond the orbit of Neptune.

The Kuiper Belt is home to Pluto and Arrokoth. Both worlds were visited by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft. There may be millions of other icy worlds in the Kuiper Belt that were left over from the formation of our solar system.

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Hubble Images of Kuiper Belt Objects
These two multiple-exposure images from Hubble show Kuiper Belt Objects against a background of stars in the constellation Sagittarius. The two KBOs are roughly 4 billion miles from Earth.
NASA, ESA, SwRI, JHU/APL, New Horizons KBO Search Team

Kuiper Belt Exploration

Most of what we know about the Kuiper Belt comes from ground-based telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope. 

Only one spacecraft has visited the Kuiper Belt. NASA’s New Horizons flew past Pluto in July 2015 – sending back the first clear, close-up images of the tiny world. On Jan. 1, 2019, the spacecraft flew by a Kuiper Belt object later named Arrokoth.

Explore the Kuiper Belt
Hubble Space Telescope in space with Earth in the background.
The Hubble Space Telescope floats above Earth after being released from space shuttle Columbia’s robot arm at the conclusion of a servicing mission in March 2002.
NASA
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Explore our solar system with NASA's Eyes on the Solar System.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/VTAD
Featured Story

10 Things to Know About the Kuiper Belt

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Illustration of spacecraft near a giant space rock far from the Sun.

Kuiper Belt

14 Images
This is one artist's concept of Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, the next flyby target for NASA's New Horizons mission.
Artist's concept of Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, which is the next flyby target for NASA's New Horizons mission.
In April 2016, NASA New Horizons spacecraft observed 1994 JR1, a 90-mile 145-kilometer wide Kuiper Belt object KBO orbiting more than 3 billion miles 5 billion kilometers from the sun.
Artist's comet of a Kuiper Belt object orbiting the Sun. The Sun is a small bright dot from this distance.
This image of the Crab Pulsar was taken with CHIMERA, an instrument at the Palomar Observatory, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology.
This annotated map projection from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft shows Charon, the largest of Pluto's five moons, annotated with its first set of official feature names.
Artist's illustration of the Epsilon Eridani system showing Epsilon Eridani b, right foreground, a Jupiter-mass planet orbiting its parent star at the outside edge of an asteroid belt.
This is an artist concept of Kuiper Belt object 2003 UB313 nicknamed Xena and its satellite Gabrielle. Xena is the large object at the bottom of this artist concept.
This artist's impression is of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft encountering 2014 MU69, a Kuiper Belt object that orbits one billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto, on Jan. 1, 2019.
Artist's view of the smallest Kuiper Belt object
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    For Kids: About the Kuiper Belt

    Just outside of Neptune’s orbit is a ring of icy bodies. We call it the Kuiper Belt. It’s pronounced "ky-purr."

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