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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.
The asteroid belt or main belt is a ring of small and large rocks and dust between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The biggest object in the asteroid belt is Ceres, a dwarf planet. The Kirkwood gaps separate the asteroid belt into several groups.
A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body orbiting the Sun whose closest approach to the Sun is less than 1.3 times the Earth–Sun distance (astronomical unit, AU). [2]
Feb 28, 2019 · The Main Belt: A Gateway to the Formation and Early Evolution of the Solar System. Workshop, Sardinia, Italy | June 4-7, 2019. The Main Asteroid Belt is at the boundary of the inner and outer solar system. It marks a transition region from the rocky volatile-poor inner terrestrial planets to the outer gaseous and icy giant planets.
Jun 2, 2024 · This is the Asteroid Belt, also known as the Main Belt to differentiate it from other groups of asteroids residing in its vicinity, such as Trojan asteroids and near-Earth asteroids.
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Asteroid belts refer to regions of space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter where millions or billions of asteroids orbit the Sun. These asteroids vary in size, composition, and speed of rotation, with the largest one being Ceres at 946 km in diameter.
For this reason, the preferred term for these bodies is "Active Asteroids". Formerly, we called them "Main Belt Comets" but this was misinterpreted by many people to mean that the active objects are necessarily icy. In most cases, we don't know if they are icy. In some cases we know that they are not.]
