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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. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets .
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]
[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.)
The asteroid belt contains tens of thousands, possibly millions, of objects over one kilometer in diameter. [141] Despite this, the total mass of the asteroid belt is unlikely to be more than a thousandth of that of Earth. [40] The asteroid belt is very sparsely populated; spacecraft routinely pass through without incident. [142]
By studying the composition of meteorites that have landed over the years and the asteroids populating our solar system, astronomers have determined that about 70% of known meteorite impacts came ...
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]
[3] [4] Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies or remnants from when the Solar System formed. While many asteroids are composed primarily of rock and metal , most Kuiper belt objects are composed largely of frozen volatiles (termed "ices"), such as methane , ammonia , and water .
Asteroids in the asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter Ceres, a dwarf planet; Pallas; Vesta; Hygiea; Asteroids number in the hundreds of thousands. For longer lists, see list of exceptional asteroids, list of asteroids, or list of Solar System objects by size. Asteroid moons; A number of smaller groups distinct from the asteroid ...