The Kuiper Belt

The Kuiper belt is a region beyond the planet Neptune

in which at least 70,000 small, icy, slow-moving objects
orbit. These relatively dark objects, "trans-Neptunians,"
are perhaps from 6-30 miles (10-50 km) in diameter.
This belt is located from roughly 30 to over 50 A.U.'s
from the Sun. It is a region where the planet-building
process was stopped in before any large objects were
formed; there are only primitive remnants from the
early accretion disk of the solar system, 4.5 billion
years ago. Pluto and Charon (Pluto's moon) may be
extremely large members of the Kuiper belt. Another
large KBO (Kuiper Belt Object) is Quaoar.

Comets and the Kuiper Belt

The Kuiper belt may be the reservoir of the short-period
comets (like Halley's comet). Short-period comets orbit
the sun in less than 200 years. The Kuiper belt objects
may be redirected into an eccentric orbit that comes
quite close to Sun. Occasionally, one of the icy objects
in the Kuiper belt is disturbed by the gravitational
forces of one of the gas giant planets, causing it to
approach Neptune, which sometimes propels the small
object into a new, very elliptical solar orbit, where it
may eventually approach the Sun (and near the Sun, the
characteristic comet tail is visible).