Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The asteroid belt is the smallest and innermost known circumstellar disc in the Solar System. Classes of small Solar System bodies in other regions are the near-Earth objects, the centaurs, the Kuiper belt objects, the scattered disc objects, the sednoids, and the Oort cloud objects. About 60% of the main belt mass is contained in the four ...
Resonant Kuiper belt. Classical Kuiper belt. Scattered disc. 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.
Types of distant minor planets. The Kuiper belt (/ ˈkaɪpər / KY-pər) [1] is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. [2] It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times as wide and 20–200 times as massive. [3][4 ...
In the main asteroid belt, there appear to be two primary populations of asteroid: a dark, volatile-rich population, consisting of the C-type and P-type asteroids, with albedos less than 0.10 and densities under 2.2 g/cm 3, and a dense, volatile-poor population, consisting of the S-type and M-type asteroids, with albedos over 0.15 and densities ...
Asteroid families become visible as distinct concentrations when asteroids are plotted in the proper orbital element space (ip vs a p). Some prominent families are the Vesta, Eunomia, Koronis, Eos, and Themis family located in different (colorized) regions of the asteroid belt. An asteroid family is a population of asteroids that share similar ...
The Kuiper belt is a great ring of debris similar to the asteroid belt, but consisting mainly of objects composed primarily of ice. [195] It extends between 30 and 50 AU from the Sun. It is composed mainly of small Solar System bodies, although the largest few are probably large enough to be dwarf planets. [196]
A secondary depletion period that brought the asteroid belt down close to its present mass is thought to have followed when Jupiter and Saturn entered a temporary 2:1 orbital resonance (see below). 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 ...
Geology of Ceres. Dawn spacecraft view of Occator Crater on Ceres in enhanced color, this image was taken on 4 May 2015. [1] The geology of Ceres is the scientific study of the surface, crust, and interior of the dwarf planet Ceres. It seeks to understand and describe Ceres' composition, landforms, evolution, and physical properties and processes.