Become a member and save up to 17% on the price of your tickets! Join today If you are already a member, log in to access your member price. The Kuiper Belt: Way Out ThereA Grand Tour of the Solar System Presented in partnership with George Mason University Observatory Evening Lecture/Seminar Tuesday, June 25, 2024 - 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. ET Code: 1J0374 Location: This online program is presented on Zoom. Select your Tickets Login $25 Member 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 $30 Non-Member Add to cart *Log in to add this program to your wishlist Reserving your tickets... Resize text A composite image of one of the many icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt, created from data captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Roman Tkachenko) Pluto was the first discovered object in the Kuiper Belt, which contains hundreds of thousands of icy bodies near and beyond Neptune's orbit. The orbits of Kuiper Belt objects provide information about the formation of our solar system, how the planets moved around in the past, and whether there might be an undiscovered planet lurking in the very distant solar system. The New Horizons probe is currently passing through the Kuiper Belt after flying past Pluto in 2015 and then tiny Arrokoth in 2019, but most exploration of the Kuiper Belt is conducted via telescopes on Earth. Samantha Lawler, an astronomy professor at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, discusses how these meticulous observations and simulations are carried out and how future observations could be threatened by light pollution from satellites. Series Information The Grand Tour of the Solar System series treks to the Sun and the four inner terrestrial planets before traveling outward to the asteroid belt, four Jovian planets, and beyond. At each session, a professional astronomer explores a solar system body, presenting the latest research. Following the talk and a question-and-answer period, Peter Plavchan, a professor of physics and astronomy at George Mason University, brings that night’s sky right into participants’ living rooms via remote control of the university observatory, weather permitting. Learn about the Series Additional Grand Tour of the Solar System Programs April 16: Pluto: Ice World Full of Surprises May 21: Comets: Dirty Snowballs General Information View Common FAQs and Policies about our Online Programs on Zoom.
