Does anyone have information on Kuiper's Belt or the Oort cloud which surrounds our solar system

Question

I learned about two things in our solar system, this thing called kuiper's belt which is past pluto, and the oort cloud which surrounds our solar system, does anyone have information on nay of these two things? I don't expect to recieve much information on any two of these subjects though since they are both a long distance away from us, but by 2015 a probe is supposed to reach kuiper's belt and begin researching it more.

Answer 1

The Kuiper Belt is a disk-shaped region past the orbit of Neptune extending roughly from 30 to 50 AU from the Sun containing many small icy bodies. It is now considered to be the source of the short-period comets.

Occasionally the orbit of a Kuiper Belt object will be disturbed by the interactions of the giant planets in such a way as to cause the object to cross the orbit of Neptune. It will then very likely have a close encounter with Neptune sending it out of the solar system or into an orbit crossing those of the other giant planets or even into the inner solar system.

There are presently nine known objects orbiting between Jupiter and Neptune (including 2060 Chiron (aka 95 P/Chiron) and 5145 Pholus; see the MPC's list). The IAU has designated this class of objects as Centaurs. These orbits are not stable. These objects are almost certainly "refugees" from the Kuiper Belt. Their future fate is not known. Some of these show some cometary activity (ie, their images are a little fuzzy indicating the presence of a diffuse coma). The largest of these is Chiron which is about 170 km in diameter, 20 times larger than Halley. If it ever is perturbed into an orbit that approaches the Sun it will be a truly spectacular comet.

The Oort cloud is an immense spherical cloud surrounding the planetary system and extending approximately 3 light years, about 30 trillion kilometers from the Sun. This vast distance is considered the edge of the Sun's****.of physical, gravitational, or dynamical influence.

Within the cloud, comets are typically tens of millions of kilometers apart. They are weakly bound to the sun, and passing stars and other forces can readily change their orbits, sending them into the inner solar system or out to interstellar space. This is especially true of comets on the outer edges of the Oort cloud. The structure of the cloud is believed to consist of a relatively dense core that lies near the ecliptic plane and gradually replenishes the outer boundaries, creating a steady state. One sixth of an estimated six trillion icy objects or comets are in the outer region with the remainder in the relatively dense core.

Answer 2

There are HUNDREDS of link answers--- just GOOGLE "Oort cloud" or "Kniper belt".

Answer 3

The Kuiper Belt is a belt of icy objects outside the orbit of Neptune, of which Pluto, Charon, Eris, and Makemake are members of.  It is fairly close to the planets of the solar system, unlike the Oort Cloud. The Oort Cloud is a larger cloud of objects surrounding the Sun about 1 light year from the center of the solar sytem that consists of icy objects.  Every so often the gravitation of another star will disturb the orbit of an Oort Cloud object, and it will "fall" toward the Sun and become a comet.  The Kuiper Belt is well known to exist, but the Oort Cloud is more hypothetical.  Sedna may be part of the inner Oort Cloud.