scattered disc
scattered disc proper noun: a trans-Neptunian region of the Solar System that overlaps the outer edge of the Kuiper belt, but also extends far beyond it, and is populated sparsely by small Solar System bodies.
Proper noun
the scattered disc
- A trans-Neptunian region of the Solar System that overlaps the outer edge of the Kuiper belt, but also extends far beyond it, and is populated sparsely by small Solar System bodies.
- There are presently about 200 known objects in the scattered disc, but some of their orbits are rather uncertain. Obviously, most of these objects are observed at perihelion passage, because their semimajor axes might be as large as hundreds of AU (where they would not be observable); if...2003, B. Bertotti, Paolo Farinella, David Vokrouhlický, Physics of the Solar System, Springer (Kluwer Academic), page 409
- The combined mass of the Kuiper belt and scattered disc is only of the order of 0.1M_🜨,^([0.1 Earth mass]) surprisingly low, but this has been a crucial clue in fathoming the evolution of the early solar system.2014, Alan Longstaff, Astrobiology: An Introduction, Taylor & Francis (CRC Press), page 66
Forms of scattered disc
| alternative form | scattered-disc |
|---|---|
| alternative form | scattered-disk |
| alternative form | scattered disk |
Words formed from scattered disc
Questions about scattered disc
- What does scattered disc mean?
- Scattered disc means a trans-Neptunian region of the Solar System that overlaps the outer edge of the Kuiper belt, but also extends far beyond it, and is populated sparsely by small Solar System bodies.
- What part of speech is scattered disc?
- Scattered disc is a proper noun.
Words near scattered disc in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: scattered disc (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “scattered disc.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scattered_disc. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
