THE KUIPER BELT AND THE EARLY SOLAR SYSTEM

David Jewitt
Institute for Astronomy

The region of the solar system immediately beyond Neptune's 
orbit is densely populated with small bodies.  This region, 
known as the Kuiper Belt, contains some of the first macroscopic 
objects to grow in the protosolar disk.  The Kuiper Belt is 
significant as a relic of the formation of the solar system, 
as the source of the short-period comets, and as a local 
analogue of the dust disks recently observed around some 
nearby main-sequence stars.  I will summarize what we know 
about the Kuiper Belt and discuss the surprising constraints 
placed on the nature of the early solar system by the latest 
observations.