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Oct08-offprint-Gladman.pdf

Over the last decade it has become clear that the Solar System’s Kuiper Belt has a rich dynamical structure. Mean-motion resonances (which are depleted in the asteroid belt and appear as the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroidal semimajor axis distribution) are preferentially populated in the Kuiper Belt, confering orbital stability to objects which would otherwise have short lifetimes against gravitational encounters with Neptune. The basics of the orbital mechanics of these resonances is presented. How planet migration may be at the origin of the observed resonant structure is outlined, along with some of the observational complications involved.