Facts about the Asteroid Belt
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Psyche, a metallic M-type asteroid located 2.9 astronomical units from the Sun, contains an estimated 700 quintillion tons of iron-nickel that would be worth approximately 700 quintillion dollars at current metal prices.
- 10
Collisions within the asteroid belt produce meteoroid fragments that occasionally drift toward Earth's orbit, with some impacting our planet as meteorites that scientists use to date the solar system's age.
- 09
Carbonaceous asteroids comprise roughly 75 percent of the asteroid belt's population and contain organic compounds and water ice similar to meteorites that fell on Earth 4.6 billion years ago.
- 08
Metallic iron-nickel cores exposed on asteroid surfaces suggest that many belt objects are fragments from planetary collisions that occurred during the solar system's formation 4.5 billion years ago.
- 07
Most asteroid belt objects orbit within a region spanning 3.2 to 5.2 astronomical units from the Sun, with the average spacing between asteroids exceeding 600,000 miles.
- 06
Jupiter's gravity well created the Kirkwood gaps, five distinct empty regions in the asteroid belt where orbital resonances with the giant planet destabilize asteroids.
- 05
During the Late Heavy Bombardment around 4.1 billion years ago, gravitational interactions scattered planetesimals from the asteroid belt toward Earth, delivering water and organic compounds to our planet.
- 04
Asteroids in the main belt travel at average speeds of 18 kilometers per second, roughly 40,000 miles per hour relative to the Sun.
- 03
Vesta, the second-largest asteroid belt object at 525 kilometers wide, reflects so much sunlight that it remains the only asteroid visible to the naked eye from Earth.
- 02
Ceres, the largest asteroid belt object at 946 kilometers in diameter, contains roughly one-third of the entire belt's total mass.
- 01
Between Mars and Jupiter, the asteroid belt contains approximately 1.9 million asteroids larger than one kilometer in diameter.