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Who discovered the first Kuiper belt object found beyond Pluto?
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Kuiper belt
An artist's rendition of a binary object in the Kuiper belt. The two objects depicted orbit each other at the edge of the solar system.
The first Kuiper belt object (KBO) discovered beyond Pluto was (15760) 1992 QB1, which was identified in 1992 by American astronomer David Jewitt and graduate student Jane Luu.12
While Pluto had been discovered decades earlier, it was later recognized as a member of the Kuiper belt rather than a distinct planet. The discovery of 1992 QB1 by Jewitt and Luu confirmed the existence of the Kuiper belt, a region of icy bodies orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune, and demonstrated that such objects could be detected with modern telescopes and light sensors.132