Thursday, May 19, 2016 - 18:30
Event Host: 
Department of Terrestrial Magnetism

The Kuiper Belt, which has Pluto as the largest member, is a region of comet-like objects just beyond Neptune. This belt of objects has an outer edge, which we are only now able to explore in detail. For the past few years we have been performing the largest and deepest survey ever attempted to search for distant solar system objects. The ongoing search has discovered the object with the most distant orbit known in our solar system and several of the largest known objects after the major planets.

These extremely distant objects are strangely grouped closely together in space, which suggests a yet unobserved planet more massive than the Earth is shepherding them into these similar orbits. Dr. Sheppard will discuss the most recent discoveries at the fringe of our solar system.

Scott Sheppard is an astronomer at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution for Science. He received his B.S. from Oberlin College and Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii. If Guinness World Records had a record for most moon discoveries, Sheppard would hold it.

Scientific Area: