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Ceres follows an orbit between Mars and Jupiter, near the middle of the asteroid belt, with an orbital period (year) of 4.6 Earth years. [2] Compared to other planets and dwarf planets, Ceres's orbit is moderately tilted relative to that of Earth; its inclination (i) is 10.6°, compared to 7° for Mercury and 17° for Pluto.
This list includes few examples since there are about 589 asteroids in the asteroid belt with a measured radius between 20 and 49 km. [171] Many thousands of objects of this size range have yet to be discovered in the trans-Neptunian region.
By far the largest object within the belt is the dwarf planet Ceres. 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 ...
First near-Earth asteroid discovered and the second largest; first asteroid to be detected by radar; first asteroid orbited and landed upon 482 Petrina: 23.3: March 3, 1902: First asteroid named after dog 490 Veritas: 115: September 3, 1902: Created in one of the largest asteroid-on-asteroid collisions of the past 100 million years 588 Achilles ...
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]
For comparison, the average distance between the Earth and the moon is about 385,000km (239,000 miles). So far, about 25,000 large asteroids have been discovered as potential “city killers”.
In 2016, astronomers spotted an asteroid about the size of a ferris wheel in an Earth-like orbit around the Sun. Turns out it's actually a chunk of the moon.
Image of the main asteroid belt and the Trojan asteroids. The asteroid belt is located between Mars and Jupiter. It is made of thousands of rocky planetesimals from 1,000 kilometres (621 mi) to a few meters across. These are thought to be debris of the formation of the Solar System that could not form a planet due to Jupiter's gravity.