The Kuiper Belt is an area of space that is much smaller than Earth's moon and surrounds our sun. The Kuiper Belt got its name from Gerard Kuiper the astronomer who projected its presence in the 1950s. It is shaped like an ellipse and resembles a doughnut-shaped ring, ranging just past the orbit of Neptune from about 30 to 55 AU. Short-period comets (which take less than 200 years to orbit the Sun) initiate in the Belt. There could probably be many icy bodies bigger than 100 km (62 miles) and an expected trillion or more comets inside the Belt. There are dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt and they have skinny atmospheres that breakdown when their orbit brings them out farthest away from the sun. Some dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt have miniature moons. The are no known rings around worlds in this region of space.
New Horizons is the name of the first mission to the Kuiper Belt. As far as we know this area of space is not proficient enough to support life.http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=KBOs
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