00:00At the edge of our solar system lies the Kuiper Belt, an area of icy and rocky debris around 30
00:09times the distance of the Earth to the Sun. Back in 2019, NASA's New Horizons probe reached the
00:15edge of that zone, and now it has uncovered a bit of a surprise. The probe's data collection
00:19indicates higher than expected dust levels in an area where the belt should be thinning,
00:24meaning it could be much wider than we thought. The Kuiper Belt is rather poorly understood,
00:28but this mission will hopefully change that, as it is taking the first direct measurements of
00:32interplanetary dust far beyond Neptune and Pluto. So what's really out there? Well, a whole lot of
00:37ice and rocks, and even dwarf planets, but hopefully more, which the researchers running the mission
00:42say many more surprises and discoveries are expected. Previously, astronomers believed that
00:47the Kuiper Belt extended out to around 50 astronomical units, or around 50 times the
00:52distance of the Earth to the Sun. Now they say it could be 80 astronomical units, meaning it's
00:58considerably thicker. With physicist Alex Donner saying about New Horizons' most recent
01:02revelation, quote, the idea that we might have detected an extended Kuiper Belt, with a whole
01:07new population of objects colliding and producing more dust, offers another clue in solving the
01:12mysteries of the solar system's most distant regions.
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