Kenneth Edgeworth
FEB 26, 2016
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.031162
Today is the birthday of Irish astronomer Kenneth Edgeworth, born in 1880. He’s best known for his 1943 proposal of a reservoir of icy objects beyond Neptune. Eight years later astronomer Gerard Kuiper came up with a more detailed prediction. Today we group those distant solar system bodies, including Pluto, Eris, and Makemake, into the Kuiper belt. Some astronomers, however, go with the term Edgeworth-Kuiper belt.
Date in History: 26 February 1880
© 2016 American Institute of Physics
