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The largest asteroids with an accurately measured mass, because they have been studied by the probe Dawn, are 1 Ceres with a mass of (939.3 ± 0.5) × 10 18 kg, and 4 Vesta at (259.076 ± 0.001) × 10 18 kg. The third-largest asteroid with an accurately measured mass, because it has moons, is 87 Sylvia at (14.76 ± 0.06) × 10 18 kg.
Asteroids vary greatly in size, from almost 1000 km for the largest down to rocks just 1 meter across, below which an object is classified as a meteoroid. [f] The three largest are very much like miniature planets: they are roughly spherical, have at least partly differentiated interiors, [69] and are thought to be surviving protoplanets.
The largest of these may have a hydrostatic-equilibrium shape, but most are irregular. Most of the trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) listed with a radius smaller than 200 km have " assumed sizes based on a generic albedo of 0.09" since they are too far away to directly measure their sizes with existing instruments.
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.
Juno (minor-planet designation: 3 Juno) is a large asteroid in the asteroid belt.Juno was the third asteroid discovered, in 1804, by German astronomer Karl Harding. [15] It is tied with three other asteroids as the thirteenth largest asteroid, and it is one of the two largest stony asteroids, along with 15 Eunomia.
These are lists of asteroids, e.g. by discoverer or by number. See list of minor planets for an overview and numbering and naming conventions . Pages in category "Lists of asteroids"
The largest object in the asteroid belt, the dwarf planet Ceres, is an icy body that measures 592 miles across. About 25% of its mass, NASA estimates , is made up of water.
These asteroids, while smaller than the dinosaur killer, struck our planet about 25,000 years apart. They left miles-long craters in the Mid-Atlantic Chesapeake Bay and Siberia: the fourth- and ...