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The asteroid and comet belts orbit the Sun from the inner rocky planets into outer parts of the Solar System, interstellar space. [ 16 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] An astronomical unit , or AU, is the distance from Earth to the Sun, which is approximately 150 billion meters (93 million miles). [ 19 ]
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.
Over 200 asteroids are known to be larger than 100 km, [45] and a survey in the infrared wavelengths has shown that the asteroid belt has between 700,000 and 1.7 million asteroids with a diameter of 1 km or more. [46] The absolute magnitudes of most of the known asteroids are between 11 and 19, with the median at about 16. [47]
Amor asteroids are further subdivided into four subgroups, depending on where their semimajor axis falls between Earth's orbit and the asteroid belt. Earth trojans, asteroids sharing Earth's orbit and gravitationally locked to it. As of 2022, two Earth trojans are known: 2010 TK 7 and 2020 XL 5. [14]
Compared to the entire mass of the asteroid belt, the mass loss necessary to sustain the NEA population is relatively small; totalling less than 6% over the past 3.5 billion years. [27] The composition of near-Earth asteroids is comparable to that of asteroids from the asteroid belt, reflecting a variety of asteroid spectral types. [124]
When discovered, asteroids were seen as a class of objects distinct from comets, and there was no unified term for the two until "small Solar System body" was coined by the IAU in 2006. The main difference between an asteroid and a comet is that a comet shows a coma due to sublimation of near-surface ices by solar radiation. A few objects have ...
Since then, the region they occupy between Mars and Jupiter is known as the asteroid belt. Alexis Bouvard detected irregularities in the orbit of Uranus in 1821. [99] Later, between 1845 and 1846, John Adams and Urbain Le Verrier separately predicted the existence and location of a new planet from irregularities in the orbit of Uranus. [100]
It is the most prominent family in the intermediate asteroid belt and the 6th-largest family with approximately 1.4% of all main belt asteroids. [3]: 23 Flora family The Flora family (adj. Florian; 13,786 members, named after 8 Flora) is the 3rd-largest family.