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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 ...
At a diameter of 964 km, Ceres is the largest object in the main asteroid belt and comprises about one-third of the belt's total mass. Ceres possesses sufficient gravity to form a rounded, ellipsoid shape, suggesting that it is close to being in hydrostatic equilibrium [6] —one of the conditions for defining a dwarf planet according to the ...
10 Hygiea is a major asteroid located in the main asteroid belt.With a mean diameter of between 425 and 440 km and a mass estimated to be 3% of the total mass of the belt, [11] it is the fourth-largest asteroid in the Solar System by both volume and mass, and is the largest of the C-type asteroids (dark asteroids with a carbonaceous surface) in classifications that use G type for 1 Ceres.
The largest of them, dubbed 2002 NV16, is 580ft (177m) across and will reach a minimum distance of 4.5 million km (2.8 million miles) from Earth at around 3.50pm UTC.
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]
While the asteroid Apophis won’t hit Earth, two spacecraft may tag along. ... When a cruise liner-size asteroid comes within 19,883 miles (32,000 kilometers) of Earth on April 13, 2029, it won ...