Skip to main content
All Reviews
AstronomyMust Read
beginner

Transneptunian Space

Gladman, Brett & Volk, Kathryn (2021)

Published
Sep 8, 2021
Journal
Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics · Vol. 59 · No. 1
DOI
10.1146/annurev-astro-120920-010005

At a GlanceAI

Nonspecialist Annual Review overview of the Kuiper Belt: its dynamical populations, their origin, and the open questions.

SummaryAI

Gladman and Volk review the structure and origin of the transneptunian region for a broad audience, linking it to planetesimal formation, giant-planet migration and protoplanetary disks. They describe the dynamical populations and how their physical properties differ, separate implanted objects from the largely unaltered primordial cold population, and list what remains unresolved: why the cold population has an outer edge, how the detached large-semimajor-axis objects formed, and how poorly the number and orbits of distant objects are still constrained.

Method SnapshotAI

Narrative review of observational surveys, dynamical modeling and formation theory.

BackgroundAI

None beyond basic orbital elements; a good entry point to the field.