Whipple (spacecraft)

[1] The observatory would try to search for objects in the Kuiper belt and the theorized Oort cloud by conducting blind occultation observations.

[1] Some of the mission goals included directly detecting the Oort cloud for the first time and determining the outer limit of the Kuiper belt.

[6] It would have a wide field of view with a fast read-out CMOS detector to achieve the desired time and photometric sensitivity.

[7] The smallest KBO yet detected was discovered in 2009 by poring over data from the Hubble Space Telescope's fine guidance sensors.

[8] Astronomers detected a transit of an object against a distant star, which, based on the duration and amount of dimming, was calculated to be a KBO about 1,000 meters (3,200 ft) in diameter.

This is a logarithmic graph showing approximately the predicted range of the Oort cloud. The combination of small size and distance have left these objects beyond the capabilities of existing optical telescopes. [ 1 ]
This observation of Halley's Comet in 2003 at 28 AU from the Sun illustrates the difficulty in observing objects as they grow more distant and faint. In this view the background stars have been removed by image processing. Whipple would try to detect comet sized objects out to 10 000 AU .
Visualization of hypothesized Oort cloud
The orbit of Sedna lies well beyond these objects, and extends many times their distances from the Sun
The orbit of Sedna (red) set against the orbits of outer Solar System objects (Pluto's orbit is purple).