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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 extended-belt asteroids were located between the current inner boundary of the asteroid belt and the orbit of Mars with semi-major axis ranging from 1.7 to 2.1 astronomical units (AU). In the current Solar System most orbits in this region are unstable due to the presence of the ν 6 secular resonance . [ 1 ]
The asteroid had a close approach to the Earth on 29 May 2012, approaching to only ~8950 miles (~14,440 km) above the planet's surface. This means 2012 KT 42 came inside the Clarke Belt of geosynchronous satellites. In May 2012, the estimated 5- to 10-metre-wide asteroid ranked #6 on the top 20 list of closest-approaches to Earth.
[58] [59] In 2006, a population of comets had been discovered within the asteroid belt beyond the snow line, which may have provided a source of water for Earth's oceans. According to some models, outgassing of water during the Earth's formative period was insufficient to form the oceans, requiring an external source such as a cometary bombardment.
When re-entering the galactic disc—as it does every 20–25 million years—it comes under the influence of the far stronger "disc tides", which, according to mathematical models, increase the flux of Oort cloud comets into the inner Solar System by a factor of 4, thus leading to a massive increase in the likelihood of a devastating comet ...
The average diameter of the orbit of the Earth relative to the Sun. Encompasses the Sun, Mercury and Venus. [18] Inner Solar System ~6.54 AU 9.78×10 8: Encompasses the Sun, the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) and the asteroid belt. Cited distance is the 2:1 resonance with Jupiter, which marks the outer limit of the asteroid belt ...
For accretion to occur, impact velocities must be less than about twice the escape velocity, which is about 140 m/s (460 ft/s) for a 100 km (60 mi) radius asteroid. [35] Simple models for accretion in the asteroid belt generally assume micrometer-sized dust grains sticking together and settling to the midplane of the nebula to form a dense ...
2012 BX 34 is a small Aten asteroid that made one of the closest recorded asteroid close approaches of Earth on 27 January 2012. It passed within 0.0004371 AU (65,390 km ; 40,630 mi ) of Earth during its closest approach at 15:25 GMT.