The Dynamics of the Kuiper belt

Hal Levison

(Southwest Research Institute)


Collaborators: Martin Duncan, Luke Dones, Ed Thommes, & Alan Stern.

Why?
The Kuiper belt represents the fossil record of outer planet formation. Thus, it can supply us with crucial information about how the planets formed.

Outline:
  1. Background.
  2. What the Kuiper belt looks like.
  3. Mechanisms that attempt to reproduce the observations.
  4. More controversial observations/models.
  5. Conclusions (such as there are).


A Microsoft-free presentation.