FEBRUARY 2008

I have recently received many inquiries from readers asking if I have ever been to the Kuiper belt, and if so, what is it like and how did I get there. Today I will seek to answer some of those burning questions.

Of course, the answer is "Yes."

The Kuiper belt for those of you who don't know, and like some advice columnists who may believe it is a type of fashion accessory, is defined by Wikipedia as:

The Kuiper belt (pronounced /kaIpə/, to rhyme with "viper"),[1] sometimes called the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt, is a region of the Solar System beyond the planets extending from the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU)[2] to approximately 55 AU from the Sun.[3] It is similar to the asteroid belt, although it is far larger; 20 times as wide and 20-200 times as massive.[4][5] Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies (remnants from the Solar System's formation) and at least one dwarf planet - Pluto. But while the asteroid belt is composed primarily of rock and metal, the Kuiper belt objects are composed largely of frozen volatiles (dubbed "ices"), such as methane, ammonia and water.
Since the first was discovered in 1992, the number of known Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) has increased to over a thousand, and more than 70,000 KBOs over 100 km in diameter are believed to reside there.[6] The Kuiper belt is believed to be the main repository for periodic comets, those with orbits lasting less than 200 years. The centaurs, comet-like bodies that orbit among the gas giants, are also believed to originate there, as are the scattered disc objects such as Eris--KBO-like bodies with extremely large orbits that take them as far as 100 AU from the Sun. Neptune's moon Triton is believed to be a captured KBO.[7] Pluto, a dwarf planet, is the largest known member of the Kuiper belt. Originally considered a planet, it has many physical properties in common with the objects of the Kuiper belt, and has been known since the early 1990s to share its orbit with a number of similarly sized KBOs, now called Plutinos. The Kuiper belt should not be confused with the hypothesized Oort cloud, which is a thousand times more distant. The objects within the Kuiper belt, together with the members of the scattered disc and any potential Hills cloud or Oort cloud objects, are collectively referred to as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs).[8]

Or to put it more simply for those of you still struggling with the fashion accessory concept, it is very, very, very, very, very, very far away. It is even farther away than your veterinarian.

And it is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very big. It is even bigger than the size of the average trash truck or the head of your veterinarian.

But most importantly, you cannot wear it.

Now to the question of how I got there. As many of you know, I spent several years studying the mysteries of the universe at a remote temple in Tibet. After my completion of those studies, I returned to the U.S. where I did a protracted internship at a top-secret division of N.A.S.A. Suffice it to say, upon leaving N.A.S.A., I went straightaway to a little known corporation located in the foothills of a certain area of New Mexico where not only are studies being done on the Oort cloud, but what I shall only refer to as "methods of transportation" to get to the said Oort cloud are also being developed. I fear I cannot say any more than that due to the highly confidential nature of the project.

However, I can personally attest to the fact that I have been to the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud and they both exist as surely as the fact that dogs poop in full public view.

Until my next Travel Log, "Travel Well."