Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Until 2001, most basaltic bodies discovered in the asteroid belt were believed to originate from the asteroid Vesta (hence their name V-type), but the discovery of the asteroid 1459 Magnya revealed a slightly different chemical composition from the other basaltic asteroids discovered until then, suggesting a different origin. [80]
The number of bodies grows rapidly as the size decreases.Based on IRAS data there are about 140 main-belt asteroids with a diameter greater than 120 km, [6] which is approximately the transition point between surviving primordial asteroids and fragments thereof.
The vast majority (97.3%) of minor planets are asteroids from the asteroid belt (the catalog uses a color code to indicate a body's dynamical classification). There are more than a thousand different minor-planet discoverers observing from a growing list of registered observatories.
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.
Vesta is the second most massive body in the asteroid belt, although it is only 28% as massive as Ceres, the most massive body. [ 64 ] [ 23 ] Vesta is however the most massive body that formed in the asteroid belt, as Ceres is believed to have formed between Jupiter and Saturn.
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 four largest asteroids constitute half the mass of the asteroid belt. Ceres is the only asteroid that appears to have a plastic shape under its own gravity and hence the only one that is a dwarf planet. [74] It has a much higher absolute magnitude than the other asteroids, of around 3.32, [75] and may possess a surface layer of ice. [76]
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.