July 4, 2014

The two Kuiper Belt Objects found by the Hubble Space Telescope showed through their movements (Image NASA, ESA, SwRI, JHU/APL, New Horizons KBO Search Team)

Despite being more than 24 years old, the Hubble Space Telescope keeps on proving it’s a truly remarkable instrument. In June, a test of observations was performed to search for celestial bodies in the Kuiper Belt, the region of the solar system beyond the orbits of the planets. This preliminary research has been a success because in the 20 areas observed for a total of 200 images two Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO) were found, two tiny planets, but their classification is to be determined, distant about 6.4 billion kilometers (about 4 billion miles) from Earth.