The discovery of the Kuiper Belt revamped our view of the solar system

Thirty years ago, astronomers learned that Pluto had neighbors

Illustration of Kuiper Belt in the solar system

The solar system’s Kuiper Belt is beyond Neptune’s orbit and home to Pluto and a slew of other icy bodies.

Ari Gea/SayoStudio

On a Hawaiian mountaintop in the summer of 1992, a pair of scientists spotted a pinprick of light inching through the constellation Pisces.