"Asteroid belt The asteroid belt is the circumstellar disc in the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets. The asteroid belt is also termed the main asteroid belt or main belt to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the Solar System such as near-Earth asteroids and trojan asteroids. About half the mass of the belt is contained in the four largest asteroids: Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea. The total mass of the asteroid belt is approximately 4% that of the"
"consisting of a large number asteroids that orbit the sun primarily between 2.2 and 3.2 AU (Earth-Sun distance) which is between the orbits of planets Mars and Jupiter. Crossing the asteroid belt is possible, because although there are over a million asteroids larger than 1 km in diameter. The distance between them is so large spacecraft pass through empty space. This was established in the early 1970s when Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 traversed the belt for the first time. There is some increased probability of encountering dust, but otherwise it takes special planning to actually pass very close to"
"main or core population of the asteroid belt is sometimes divided into three zones, based on the most prominent Kirkwood gaps: The asteroid belt may also be divided into the inner and outer belts, with the inner belt formed by asteroids orbiting nearer to Mars than the 3:1 Kirkwood gap (2.5 AU), and the outer belt formed by those asteroids closer to Jupiter's orbit. (Some authors subdivide the inner and outer belts at the 2:1 resonance gap (3.3 AU), whereas others suggest inner, middle, and outer belts; also see diagram). The high population of the asteroid belt makes for a"
"main belt's background population when applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements. Based on osculating Keplerian orbital elements, the asteroid has also been classified as a member of the Nysa family (), the largest asteroid family of the main belt, consisting of stony and carbonaceous subfamilies. The family, named after 44 Nysa, is located in the inner belt near the Kirkwood gap (3:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter), a depleted zone that separates the central main belt. It orbits the Sun in the inner asteroid belt at a distance of 2.1–2.8 AU once every 3 years and 11"
"Kuiper belt The Kuiper belt (), occasionally called the Edgeworth–Kuiper belt, is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times as wide and 20 to 200 times as massive. Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies or remnants from when the Solar System formed. While many asteroids are composed primarily of rock and metal, most Kuiper belt objects are composed largely of frozen volatiles (termed ""ices""), such as methane,"
"belt, two concentrations of icy material were found in the system. The first belt lies between 4 and 9 AU, and is at the equivalent position of the solar system's asteroid belt, while the second belt is even farther out between 30 and 80 AU, where the solar system's Kuiper Belt would lie. This material may be the source of future water for the rocky planet at 1.8 AU if and when it completes its formation. There may also be gas giant planets in this system, already formed (in the first 1-5 Myrs) before the current era of rocky planet"
"very active environment, where collisions between asteroids occur frequently (on astronomical time scales). Collisions between main-belt bodies with a mean radius of 10 km are expected to occur about once every 10 million years. A collision may fragment an asteroid into numerous smaller pieces (leading to the formation of a new asteroid family). Conversely, collisions that occur at low relative speeds may also join two asteroids. After more than 4 billion years of such processes, the members of the asteroid belt now bear little resemblance to the original population. Along with the asteroid bodies, the asteroid belt also contains bands"
"lying just between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus in the Solar System. The planet is still glowing red hot. HR 8799 e is the innermost known planet as it orbits closer to its star than the other three known planets in this planetary system. This planet orbits at an estimated distance of 14.5 AU based on the relationship between angular separation measured by direct imaging observations and the star's distance from Earth. The estimated period of this planet if the orbit is face-on is about 50 years. A team of researchers led by Christian Marois at the National Research"
"asteroid belt at a distance of 1.9–3.3 AU once every 4 years and 2 months (1,534 days; semi-major axis of 2.6 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.27 and an inclination of 4° with respect to the ecliptic. Alan Stern, principal investigator for ""New Horizons"", named the asteroid in reference to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), which developed the ""New Horizons"", ""NEAR Shoemaker"" and ""MESSENGER"" missions. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 6 January 2007 (). The ""New Horizons"" probe flew by it at a distance of approximately 102,000 kilometers"
"belt and the near-Earth populations, crossing the orbit of Mars at 1.66 AU. It also belongs to the dynamical Hungaria group, which forms the innermost dense concentration of asteroids in the Solar System. It is, however, not a member of the Hungaria family (), but a non-family asteroid of the main belt's background population when applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements. It orbits the Sun in the innermost asteroid belt at a distance of 1.65–1.97 AU once every 2 years and 5 months (890 days; semi-major axis of 1.81 AU). Its orbit has an unusually low"
"0.1% of the original mass. Since their formation, the size distribution of the asteroid belt has remained relatively stable: there has been no significant increase or decrease in the typical dimensions of the main-belt asteroids. The 4:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter, at a radius 2.06 AU, can be considered the inner boundary of the asteroid belt. Perturbations by Jupiter send bodies straying there into unstable orbits. Most bodies formed within the radius of this gap were swept up by Mars (which has an aphelion at 1.67 AU) or ejected by its gravitational perturbations in the early history of the Solar"
"Location of Ceres (within asteroid belt) compared to other bodies of the Solar System Asteroids and the asteroid belt are a staple of science fiction stories. Asteroids play several potential roles in science fiction: as places human beings might colonize, resources for extracting minerals, hazards encountered by spacecraft traveling between two other points, and as a threat to life on Earth or other inhabited planets, dwarf planets and natural satellites by potential impact. ""Further information about asteroids"" Asteroid Asteroids are minor planets, especially of the inner Solar System. Larger asteroids have also been called planetoids. These terms have historically been"
"2060 Chiron 2060 Chiron (), provisional designation , and also known as 95P/Chiron, is a small solar system body (or minor planet) in the outer Solar System, orbiting the Sun between Saturn and Uranus. Discovered in 1977 by Charles Kowal, it was the first-identified member of a new class of objects now known as centaurs—bodies orbiting between the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt. Although it was initially called an asteroid and classified only as a minor planet with the designation ""2060 Chiron"", it was later found to exhibit behavior typical of a comet. Today it is classified as both"
"all dwarf planets"", and describes it elsewhere as ""the dwarf planet–asteroid 1 Ceres"". NASA continues to refer to Ceres as an asteroid, as do various academic textbooks. Ceres follows an orbit between Mars and Jupiter, within the asteroid belt, with a period of 4.6 Earth years. The orbit is moderately inclined (""i"" = 10.6° compared to 7° for Mercury and 17° for Pluto) and moderately eccentric (""e"" = 0.08 compared to 0.09 for Mars). The diagram illustrates the orbits of Ceres (blue) and several planets (white and gray). The segments of orbits below the ecliptic are plotted in darker colors,"
"Only in 1949 did the well-known Soviet astronomer Sergej Vladirimovich Orlov give it the name Phaeton... This name has become established."" Theories regarding the formation of the asteroid belt from the destruction of a hypothetical fifth planet are today collectively referred to as the ""disruption theory"". This theory states that there was once a major planetary member of our solar system circulating in the present gap between Mars and Jupiter, which was variously destroyed when: Today, the Phaeton hypothesis has been superseded by the accretion model. Most astronomers today believe that the asteroids in the main belt are remnants of"
"65 Cybele Cybele ( minor planet designation: 65 Cybele) is one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System and is located in the outer asteroid belt. It gives its name to the Cybele group of asteroids that orbit outward from the Sun from the 2:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter. The X-type asteroid has a relatively short rotation period of 6.0814 hours. It was discovered by Wilhelm Tempel in 1861, and named after Cybele, the earth goddess. ""Cybele"" was discovered on 8 March 1861, by German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel from the Marseilles Observatory in southeastern France. A minor controversy arose"
"belt's background population when applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements. Based on osculating Keplerian orbital elements, the asteroid has also been classified as a member of the Vesta family (), one of the largest asteroid families of bright asteroids in the main-belt. It orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 2.2–2.6 AU once every 3 years and 8 months (1,328 days; semi-major axis of 2.36 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.09 and an inclination of 5° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with its official discovery"
"extinction of the dinosaurs. Such events are, however, sufficiently rare that there is no special reason to expect such an impact in the near future. When the theme of interplanetary colonization first entered SF, the Asteroid Belt was quite low on the list of desirable real estate, far behind such planets as Mars and Venus (often conceived as a kind of paradise planet, until probes in the 1960s revealed uninhabitable temperatures with a deadly carbon dioxide and sulfur atmosphere under its clouds). Thus, in many stories and books the Asteroid Belt, if not a positive hazard, is still a rarely"
"belt's background population when applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements. Based on osculating Keplerian orbital elements, the asteroid has also been classified as a Themistian asteroid that belongs to the Themis family (), a very large family of carbonaceous asteroids, named after 24 Themis. It orbits the Sun in the outer asteroid belt at a distance of 2.7–3.6 AU once every 5 years and 6 months (2,008 days; semi-major axis of 3.11 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.15 and an inclination of 1° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins at"
"three identified main-belt comets all orbit within the outer part of the asteroid belt. It is not known how an outer Solar System body like the other comets could have made its way into a low-eccentricity orbit typical of the asteroid belt, which is only weakly perturbed by the planets. Hence it is assumed that unlike other comets, the main-belt comets are simply icy asteroids, which formed in an inner Solar System orbit close to their present positions, and that many outer asteroids may be icy. Some main-belt comets display a cometary dust tail only for a part of their"
"""Protector"", the Belt government is a meritocracy; Lit Shaeffer was chosen for a leadership position by aptitude test, and ""worked [his] way up"". Belter (Niven) In Larry Niven's fictional ""Known Space"" universe, a Belter refers to a resident of the Asteroid Belt around Sol, sometimes known as the Sol Belt to differentiate it from Alpha Centauri's Serpent Swarm. Rugged and highly individualistic, Belters make their living by mining the ores from the asteroidal rocks. Belters inhabit the main belt, trojan asteroids of the outer planets, centaur planetoids and NEA's. Transient by nature, the only home they typically own is their"
"of ordinary chondrites; the Dawn mission confirmed hypotheses that (4) Vesta was the HED parent. Ongoing projects are sending spacecraft to C-, M-, D-, and P-type bodies. The planets, and to an extent the Asteroid Belt, were previously held to be static and unchanging. The Belt was a former or stalled planet. After the discovery of many near-Earth asteroids, not in the Belt, it was apparent they had planet-crossing, unstable orbits. Their number could not have survived from the Solar System's formation, and required replenishment from some other population. Some, such as Opik and Wetherill, hypothesized that most or all"
"the existence of an asteroid belt between Mercury and the Sun. None of these claims has ever been substantiated after more than forty years of observation. It has been surmised that some of these objects—and other alleged intra-Mercurial objects—may exist, being nothing more than previously unknown comets or small asteroids. No such vulcanoid asteroids have been found, and searches have ruled out any such asteroids larger than about . Neither SOHO nor STEREO has detected a planet inside the orbit of Mercury. Vulcan (hypothetical planet) Vulcan is a small hypothetical planet that was proposed to exist in an orbit between"
"fictional asteroid Orpheus in the Asteroid Belt is hit by a comet, dozens of asteroid fragments are sent on a collision course towards Earth, along with a five-mile fragment which will cause an extinction-level event. While the United States government engages in political maneuvering, the smaller asteroid fragments preceding the main body wreak havoc on the planet, revealing the threat. The United States has a secret orbiting nuclear missile platform satellite named ""Hercules"", which was designed by Dr. Paul Bradley (Sean Connery). It was intended to defend Earth against a threat like Orpheus, but instead was commandeered by the U.S."
"large impact crater on its southern hemisphere near the South pole, formed as a result of a subcatastrophic collision. Vesta is the main belt's second-largest and second-most-massive body after Ceres. It orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 2.1–2.7 AU once every 3 years and 7 months (1,323 days; semi-major axis of 2.36 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.13 and an inclination of 5° with respect to the ecliptic. The asteroid was first observed at Goethe Link Observatory in October 1952. The body's observation arc begins with its observation as at Crimea-Nauchnij in August"
"Moon, or 22% that of Pluto, and roughly twice that of Pluto's moon Charon (whose diameter is 1200 km). Ceres, the asteroid belt's only dwarf planet, is about 950 km in diameter, whereas 4 Vesta, 2 Pallas, and 10 Hygiea have mean diameters of less than 600 km. The remaining bodies range down to the size of a dust particle. The asteroid material is so thinly distributed that numerous unmanned spacecraft have traversed it without incident. Nonetheless, collisions between large asteroids do occur, and these can produce an asteroid family whose members have similar orbital characteristics and compositions. Individual asteroids"
"The left image is a ""top view"" of a wide belt, and the right image is an ""edge view"" of a narrow belt. Computer simulations of dust in the Kuiper belt suggest that when it was younger, it may have resembled the narrow rings seen around younger stars. Kuiper belt The Kuiper belt (), occasionally called the Edgeworth–Kuiper belt, is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times as wide and 20"
"the largest one in the intermediate main belt with more than 5,000 members. It orbits the Sun in the central main belt at a distance of 2.3–3.0 AU once every 4 years and 4 months (1,584 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.13 and an inclination of 14° with respect to the ecliptic. The asteroid was first identified in June 1935 as at Simeiz Observatory on Crimea, where the body's observation arc begins the following month on July 1935. ""Koranna"" is an assumed stony S-type asteroid. Between 2088 and 2013, three rotational lightcurves of ""Koranna"" have been obtained from"
"population. It is both a binary asteroid and a main-belt comet, also known as ""active asteroid"". It orbits the Sun in the outer main-belt at a distance of 2.4–3.7 AU once every 5 years and 4 months (1,944 days; semi-major axis of 3.05 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.20 and an inclination of 3° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins on September 2000, with a precovery taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey at Apache Point Observatory, New Mexico, more than six years prior to its official discovery observation by Spacewatch at Kitt Peak."
"futuristic saga, in which humans have colonized both Mars and the Asteroid Belt (which separates Mars from our solar system's largest planet, gas giant Jupiter). The asteroids are rife with precious metals that residents on both planets—Earth and Mars—spar over, leaving the asteroid miners in the middle and understandably feeling like underappreciated pawns. Unequal rights on Mars and in the Belt, as compared to Earth's, only serve to heighten the tension and give Det. Miller additional motivation to solve the murders he's investigating. The ten episodes of the first season, which premiered December 2015, proved so successful critically and in"
"km (12 and 11 miles), respectively. This means that is likely a binary system in the Kuiper Belt, formed in the early phases of the Solar System. Its orbital period around the Sun is slightly more than 295 years and it has a low inclination and low eccentricity compared to other objects in the Kuiper belt. These orbital properties mean that it is a cold classical Kuiper belt object which is unlikely to have undergone significant perturbations. Observations in May and July 2015 as well as in July and October 2016 greatly reduced the uncertainties in the orbit. The updated"
"1960s and 1970s. Gehrels used Palomar's Samuel Oschin telescope (also known as the 48-inch Schmidt Telescope), and shipped the photographic plates to Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden Observatory where astrometry was carried out. The trio are credited with the discovery of several thousand minor planets. The asteroid is a member of the Koronis family, a collisional group consisting of a few hundred known bodies with nearly ecliptical orbits. It orbits the Sun in the outer main-belt at a distance of 2.6–3.0 AU once every 4 years and 9 months (1,747 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.07"
"his honor . The asteroid, a main belt object in orbit between Mars and Jupiter, was discovered by astronomer Brian A. Skiff at Lowell Observatory’s Anderson Mesa Station in 1984 and the citation was proposed and written by astronomer David H. Levy. Eicher's books include ""COMETS! Visitors from Deep Space"" (Cambridge University Press).; a book with Brian May, guitarist and singer from the rock group Queen, and astronomer Garik Israelian, constituting the conference proceedings, lectures, and information from the first Starmus Festival, a science and music event held in 2011 in the Canary Islands; and ""The New Cosmos: Answering Astronomy’s"