Kuiper belt
1
8.4
- noun
- /ˈkaɪpər bɛlt/
- Specialized
:
cinturón de Kuiper
- Some Kuiper belt objects are half the size of Pluto, leading many astronomers to question Pluto's planetary status.
- Kuiper belt objects
But then there's a separate group of Earthlings that go out to the Kuiper Belt and they're miners.
- But then there's a separate group of Earthlings that go out to the Kuiper Belt and they're miners.
- Another way to do the statistics, which is what we prefer to do is to take and to say we have a whole night sky of discoveries in the Kuiper Belt, right?
Examples
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Like the asteroids, hundreds more objects were later discovered in the outer solar system, with orbits similar to that of Pluto, signaling the existence of a theretofore uncharted reservoir called the Kuiper belt.
Academic text (2002) -
Astronomers study the Kuiper belt to learn more about the formation of the Solar System.
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The question of whether a Jupiter-sized object could clear out the Kuiper belt could be settled that way.
Blog text (30) -
OK, Pluto is the most significant member of the Kuiper belt of comets.
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PHOTO (COLOR): Over the past decade, astronomers have come to realize that Pluto is just the largest known member of the Kuiper belt.
Academic text (2003) -
It's located in a region called the Kuiper Belt, home to many small planets, hundreds of thousands of ancient icy objects, and trillions of comets.
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The Kuiper belt lies beyond Neptune and contains many icy bodies and dwarf planets.
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Several missions have been planned to explore the Kuiper belt and its intriguing objects.
Synonyms
A ring of small icy objects beyond Neptune that orbit the Sun and sometimes become comets
Surface Forms
Morphology
Kuiper + belt
Because 'Kuiper' is a proper name with no lexical meaning for learners and 'belt' only gives a vague idea of a band or region, a B1 learner who knows the constituents would not be able to infer the specific astronomical sense (a region beyond Neptune containing icy bodies). The term is a named scientific concept whose full meaning is not compositional or predictable from its parts, so it is not transparently derivable.
Etymology
Kuiper belt is named after the astronomer Gerard Kuiper, and the word belt gives the image of a wide 'ring' of many small, icy bodies beyond Neptune, so the name means that distant region of the Solar System.