The asteroid belt tells the story of the innovation of the solar scheme . When it formed , not everything coalesced into a planet . Like LEGO bricks that never made it out of the bucket , these aim were organized by purgative into a band locate between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter . This is the asteroid belt . Here are some things you might not have sex about it .
1. THERE ARE MORE THAN A HALF-MILLION ASTEROIDS.
Over a half - million asteroids have been discovered by scientists , with hundreds of thousands yet to be found . They are in the main part into three classes : second - case ( for stony ) ; speed of light - type ( chondrites , for the most part compose of carbon , the most common — and perhaps the oldest — of the bunch ) ; and M - type ( metallic ) . The asteroid place in distance from 30 feet to 330 miles . For the most part , they are strangely forge , and , like the satellite , spin ( though not always so eloquently ) . Some asteroids have moons ; some have two . Not every asteroid is locate in the asteroid knock . Some , called Trojans , share the compass of Jupiter . Some lurk perilously close to Earth . These are callednear - Earth asteroid .
2.ASTEROIDMEANS “STAR-LIKE.”
The first asteroid was strike in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi , though he did n’t acknowledge it at the fourth dimension . He intend he had see the long - sought planet between Mars and Jupiter . He named his uncovering Ceres , after the Roman goddess of harvest time ( and namesake to the wordcereal , though that parole would n’t be coineduntil 1818 ) .
Just over a year by and by , another " major planet " was discovered . And another . And another . Eventually , there were so many satellite that stargazer discombobulate up their hands and pay the whole chemical group a new categorisation : asteroid , or " star - like " in Greek . The name was chosen because they appeared , well , star - like in telescopes ; they would not adjudicate as discs as planet do . Ceres ’s run as a major planet lasted about 60 twelvemonth before it was demoted to asteroid . In 2006 , the International Astronomical Union reclassified it again , this time as a dwarf planet . This is the same decision that designate Pluto as a nanus satellite , though there is some debate on this point .
3. ALL THE ASTEROIDS IN IT DON’T ADD UP TO MUCH.
It ’s likely that illustrations you ’ve seen of the asteroid belt are not drawn to graduated table . If all of the objects in the asteroid belt were bring together and made into a exclusive ball , its combined mass would only be 4 pct of the size of the Moon . In fact , Ceres alone accounts for one - third of the total mass of the asteroid belt .
4. FLY YOUR SPACESHIP INTO IT. YOU WON’T HIT ANYTHING.
What ’s the bountiful misconception that people have about the asteroid belt ? Mental Floss asked Dante Lauretta , the principal researcher of theOSIRIS - king missionto theasteroid Bennu(which once lived in the main asteroid rap before being collide loose by Saturn and sent on a course for the intimate solar system ) . His reply : The Empire Strikes Back . the great unwashed imagine " that it ’s this tumbling , highly industrious boulder field with things gate-crash into each other perpetually , and Han Solo has to dodge and weave to avoid hit , " Lauretta says .
But the asteroid belted ammunition is downright spacious . If the colonnade gameAsteroidswere real , it would jolly much comprise of a ship and a black screenland and … nothing to shoot . " When you fly a spacecraft through the asteroid whang , it ’s a real challenge to actually get close enough to an asteroid to see it , " Lauretta explicate . " You have to specifically place it . " There are , on average,620,000–1.8 million milesbetween asteroids .
5. THE HISTORY OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM IS HIDDEN WITHIN.
Back in the 1980s , scientist really congeal about spectrally classifying each physical object in the asteroid belt , and they discovered a compositional gradient . There were a pile of non-white , carbonaceous objects in the outer asteroid rap , and brighter , " ordinary chondritic , " S - case material in the interior asteroid rap . Spectral survey today are start up to get really detailed , and scientists are getting a good look at objects as small as 6 mil across . As they get into asteroid compositions , they are see a o.k. complex body part in the compositional figure , and placing it in the context of the active state of the other solar system .
" Organics and methamphetamine hydrochloride are going to be stable farther out [ in the belt ] , and metals and John Rock are move to be stable further in . You expect to see that , " says Lauretta . " But now you ’re starting to see that there really are organic - rich and piddle - rich material in the main belt . It ’s a small fraction of it , but it ’s a significant fraction . And there ’s bumpy and bright material in the out belt . " That distribution of material is a record book of migration of jumbo planets and the dynamic phylogeny of the solar system of rules .
" I imagine we ’re going to be capable to piece together a much more complex , chemical - dynamical joined model of the phylogeny of the solar system , and see it almost like the stratigraphic layers of the geologic phonograph recording . It will narrate us the tale of the development of the whang — not just the initial protoplanetary disk which established that chemistry , but how major events in the phylogenesis of our solar organisation modified that dispersion . "
6. SCIENTISTS ARE SEARCHING FOR ITS MOST ANCIENT OBJECTS.
Presently , planetary scientist are trying to distinguish and realize the primeval structures in the asteroid belt much in the same direction that fossilist or geologists hunt for the earliest signs of the origin of life in the geological platter . " That ’s where the biggest challenge lie , " says Lauretta . " There is , in the most ancient example , a discrete signal that you ’ve set out to pull out . It ’s go bad to be very tiny . "
Scientists endeavor to understand what has been preserved from the dawn of the solar system — what they can desire as a rightful primaeval signature tune of how our terrestrial system formed — versus what has been fret or modify or changed over 4.5 billion eld of evolution . " Trying to pick out that starting circumstance and targeting our scientific investigating into those areas is where the greatest challenge lies . "
NASA ’s recently announcedLucy missionto multiple asteroids will aid do this . " Everybody thinks those Trojans are the ones that hold that samara to the earliest , most primitive cloth of the solar organisation , " says Lauretta . " The Lucy team can get out there and do some cool science . "
7. ASTEROIDS ARE LIKE SNOWFLAKES.
No two are exactly likewise , and each one has its own story to tell . " Every asteroid is a unique world to explore , and that is awesome , " say Lauretta . " There is so much diverseness and so many challenge out there . When we truly get out there and start dig around , we ’re going to see some material hap that we never even dreamed of . "
8. NASA IS GOING BIG ON ASTEROIDS.
NASA’sDawn spacecraftis presently in orbit around Ceres , where it continue to characterize that target and how it shift as it circle the Sun . ( It previously orbited Vesta , constitute it the only spacecraft to orb two extraterrestrial bodies . ) NASA’sOSIRIS - RExwill arrive at the asteroid Bennu in August 2018 . Earlier this year , the government agency okay two missions to diminished bodies : thespacecraft Psychewill travel to the asteroid 16 Psyche , a mystical , all - metal world . ( It might once have been the center of a protoplanet . ) The Lucy mission will travel to five Trojan asteroid that deal Jupiter ’s orbit . The Nipponese Space Agency’sHayabusa 2 spacecraftwill arrive next class at Ryugu ( a.k.a . 1999 JU3 ) , a near - Earth asteroid . Like OSIRIS - REx , it will take a sample and revert it to Earth for analysis .
And that analysis is serious concern . In the case of sample distribution and meteorites , Lauretta says , " most mass do n’t pull in that we pluck apart these things metric grain by grain , atom by atom , isotope ratio by isotope ratio , and put together elaborate story about what encounter billions of year ago in our solar system of rules . "
