Scattered Disc - Discovery

Discovery

See also: History of the Kuiper belt

During the 1980s, the introduction of the charge-coupled device in telescopes in combination with higher-capacity computers for image analysis allowed for more efficient deep-sky surveys than was practical using photography. This led to a flood of new discoveries: between 1992 and 2006, over a thousand trans-Neptunian objects were detected.

The first scattered-disc object to be recognised as such was 1996 TL66, originally identified in 1996 by astronomers based at Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Three more were identified by the same survey in 1999: 1999 CV118, 1999 CY118, and 1999 CF119. The first object presently classified as an SDO to be discovered was 1995 TL8, found in 1995 by Spacewatch.

As of 2011, over 200 SDOs have been identified, including 2007 UK126 (discovered by Schwamb, Brown, and Rabinowitz), 2002 TC302 (NEAT), Eris (Brown, Trujillo, and Rabinowitz), Sedna (Brown, Trujillo, and Rabinowitz) and 2004 VN112 (Deep Ecliptic Survey). Although the numbers of objects in the Kuiper belt and the scattered disc are hypothesized to be roughly equal, observational bias due to their greater distance means that far fewer SDOs have been observed to date.

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