The Kuiper belt (pronounced , to rhyme with "viper"), 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) to approximately 55 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, although it is far larger; 20 times as wide and 20–200 times as massive. 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.
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A flared disc of icy bodies which has its inner boundary just beyond the orbit of Pluto. The Kuiper belt supplies the solar system with short period comets . With increasing distance from the Sun it extends gradually upwards and around into the Oort cloud which surrounds the solar system. More .
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