scattered disc
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The scattered disc is a region of icy bodies located in the far outer Solar System, beyond the Kuiper Belt. It matters because studying these distant objects helps us understand the structure and history of our Solar System.
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Eris (center), the largest known scattered-disc object, and its moon Dysnomia (left of Eris)
The scattered disc (or scattered disk) is a distant circumstellar disc in the Solar System that is sparsely populated by icy small Solar System bodies, which are a subset of the broader family of trans-Neptunian objects. The scattered-disc objects (SDOs) have orbital eccentricities ranging as high as 0.8, inclinations as high as 40°, and perihelia greater than 30 astronomical units (4.5×10 km; 2.8×10 mi). These extreme orbits are thought to be the result of gravitational "scattering" by the gas giants, and the objects continue to be subject to perturbation by the planet Neptune.