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This asteroid belt is also called the main asteroid belt or main belt to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the Solar System. [1] 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 ...
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]
A top view of asteroid group location in the inner solar system A map of planets and asteroid groups of the inner solar system. Distances from sun are to scale, object sizes are not. Various dynamical groups of asteroids have been discovered orbiting in the inner Solar System.
[7] [8] For a more complete list, see List of Solar System objects by size. The inner asteroid belt (defined as the region interior to the 3:1 Kirkwood gap at 2.50 AU) has few large asteroids. Of those in the above list, only 4 Vesta, 19 Fortuna, 6 Hebe, 7 Iris and 9 Metis orbit there. (Sort table by mean distance.)
NEOs are defined as asteroids that hug the inner solar system, where we live, coming within 1.3 astronomical units of the sun. A single astronomical unit is the distance from the sun to the Earth ...
The impact occurred during a period of heavy bombardment in the inner solar system by space rocks thought to have been dislodged following a change in the orbits of the solar system's giant ...
Ceres to scale among the Inner Solar System planetary-mass objects beside the Sun, arranged by the order of their orbits outward from the Sun (from left: Mercury, Venus, Earth, the Moon, Mars and Ceres) Ceres is the largest asteroid in the main asteroid belt. [16]
A small asteroid will be pulled into orbit around the Earth as a “mini-moon” later this month before the space rock departs into other parts of the solar system.. The 10m-wide asteroid, dubbed ...