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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 and Mars.
The boundary of the region where ice could form in the early Solar System is known as the frost line (or snow line), and is located in the modern asteroid belt, between about 2.7 and 3.1 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. [24] [25] It is therefore necessary that objects forming beyond the frost line–such as comets, trans-Neptunian objects ...
The "snow line" of the Solar System lies outside of the main asteroid belt, and the majority of water is expected in minor planets (e.g. Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) and Centaurs). Nevertheless, a significant amount of water is also found inside the snow line, including in near-earth objects (NEOs).
The inner Solar System's period of giant impacts probably played a role in Earth acquiring its current water content (~6 × 10 21 kg) from the early asteroid belt. Water is too volatile to have been present at Earth's formation and must have been subsequently delivered from outer, colder parts of the Solar System. [63]
Another 8% of the Earth meteorites can be traced to the Flora and Nysa asteroid families in the main asteroid belt, the research found. And about 6% of the meteorites can be traced to Vesta, it ...
Solar System belts are asteroid and comet belts that orbit the Sun in the Solar System in interplanetary space. [1] [2] The Solar System belts' size and placement are mostly a result of the Solar System having four giant planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune far from the sun. The giant planets must be in the correct place, not too close ...
[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.
The asteroid responsible for our last mass extinction 66 million years ago — wiping out the dinosaurs — originated from the far reaches of our solar system, unlike most asteroids that have ...