The Asteroid Belt is the space between Mars and Jupiter.
It contains irregularly shaped chunks of debris called asteroids. Scientists believe the asteroids are the pieces of a planet that never formed.
One possible theory is the ongoing gravitational tug-of-war between Jupiter and Mars has prevented the pieces from bonding together, hence, this planet was never created.
The Space Asteroids are made of rock and metal, mostly nickel and iron.
The first flybys of asteroids were performed in 1991 and 1993 by NASA's Galileo spacecraft and in 1996 by the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft.
In the 1980's, the Soviet Union was planning to send a probe to Vesta. No information available on its status.
The Asteroid Belt is a region between the inner planets and outer planets where
thousands of asteroids are found orbiting around the Sun.
The main asteroid belt extends from 255 to 600 million km (2.15 to 3.3
astronomical units) from the Sun and may contain over a million objects bigger
than 1 km across. The largest objects are Ceres (1,003 km), Pallas (608 km), and
Vesta (538 km).
Did you know?
Beyond the orbit of Neptune lies an even large and more populous region of minor
bodies known as the Kuiper belt.
Books:
Asteroid Impact by Douglas Henderson
(Illustrator), Toby Sherry (Editor), Doug Henderson
From Amazon.com,
Amazon.co.uk
Impact!: The Threat of Comets and Asteroids
by Gerrit L. Verschuur
From Amazon.com,
Amazon.co.uk
The Asteroid Belt
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