Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
By far the largest object within the belt is the dwarf planet Ceres. The total mass of the asteroid belt is significantly less than Pluto's, and roughly twice that of Pluto's moon Charon. The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter ...
Ceres (minor-planet designation: 1 Ceres) is a dwarf planet in the middle main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was the first known asteroid , discovered on 1 January 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi at Palermo Astronomical Observatory in Sicily , and announced as a new planet .
At a diameter of 964 km, Ceres is the largest object in the main asteroid belt and comprises about one-third of the belt's total mass. Ceres possesses sufficient gravity to form a rounded, ellipsoid shape, suggesting that it is close to being in hydrostatic equilibrium [ 6 ] —one of the conditions for defining a dwarf planet according to the ...
[39] [40] Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies (remnants from the Solar System's formation) and at least one dwarf planet—Pluto, which may be geologically active. [41] But while the asteroid belt is composed primarily of rock and metal, the Kuiper belt is composed largely of ices, such as methane, ammonia, and water.
Most highly inclined known main-belt asteroid from August 17, 1998, to October 19, 1998 MPC (88043) 2000 UE 110: 51.998° October 29, 2000 First main-belt asteroid discovered and numbered to have an inclination greater than 50°. MPC (138925) 2001 AU 43: 72.132° January 4, 2001 A Mars-crosser and near-Earth object. MPC (127546) 2002 XU 93: 77 ...
Scientists have detected ice on the planet's surface, which could mean Ceres is hiding an ocean below its frozen crust. Dwarf planet Ceres may have a huge ocean that could support life Skip to ...
Some 4.46 billion years ago, a proto-planet named Theia smacked into Earth and created what would eventually become our Moon. Now, according to a new study by the University of Arizona, the Moon ...
The listed objects currently include most objects in the asteroid belt and moons of the giant planets in this size range, but many newly discovered objects in the outer Solar System are missing, such as those included in the following reference. [58]