The Asteroid belt

Image Source  The Asteroid belt

The asteroid belt is a circumstellar disc in the Solar System which is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and contains various irregularly shaped bodies known as asteroids. This belt is also known as the main asteroid belt or main belt. The four largest asteroids occupy half the mass in the belt and they are Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea. The total mass of the belt is about 4% that of the Moon and 22% that of Pluto. There are three basic groups of asteroids based on the composition: carbonaceous or C-type, silicate or S-type, and metal-rich or M-type.

Ceres was the first asteroid to be discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801. Ceres with a diameter of 900 km is the largest asteroid and the only dwarf planet in the belt. Vesta has a diameter of 525 km. Pallas has a diameter of 512 km. Hygiea is not round and has an oblong diameter of 350–500 km. There are more than 200 asteroids larger than 100 km. There are between 700,000 and 1.7 million asteroids with a diameter of 1 km or more.

The asteroid material is thinly distributed still collisions between large asteroids occur which creates new asteroids. Some of the debris can form meteoroids that enter Earth's atmosphere. About 99.8% (50,000) of the meteorites found on Earth are believed to have originated in the asteroid belt.

On Jan 22, 2014, ESA scientists reported the detection of water vapor on Ceres. Vapors were detected using the far-infrared abilities of the Herschel Space Observatory. Comets are typically considered to "sprout jets and plumes", not asteroids, hence this finding was unexpected. 

Source: Wikipedia

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