Asteroid Belt

The asteroid belt is a belt of asteroids and meteoroids that are in between the inner/terrestrial planets and the outer/gaseous planets. Jupiter’s gravity is what keeps all of these rocks from crashing into the inner planets. The asteroid belt contains trillions of asteroids, some of which are 200 miles long! They are made by the leftover rock and dust that was just lying around after the planets were made. We have launched plenty of spacecraft to observe asteroids. The NASA’s Galileo launched in 1991 was the first craft to take close-up pictures of asteroids and to discover a smaller asteroid serving as a moon to a larger asteroid. In 2001, the NEAR spacecraft landed on the asteroid Eros. Japanese Hayabusa, meaning Peregrine Falcon, was the first to land and take off from an asteroid. The rocks are under study in a lab in Japan. Humans also have seen a business opportunity from the metal rich asteroids. Planetary Resources said that they would send a mission to extract metal and water from near-Earth asteroids. Like our planets, individual asteroids are peculiar and intriguing to man. 

·         Most Massive: 4 Vesta

·         Biggest Diameter: 2 Pallas

·         Longest day: 846 Lipperta-1641 hours

·         Shortest day: 2010 JL₈₈-24.5 seconds!

·         Orbits backwards: Dioretsa (What’s asteroid backwards!)

·         First discovered asteroid with a moon: Asteroid-243 Ida. Moon- 243 Ida I Dactyl