THE ASTEROID BELT

The Asteroid Belt refers to a region in our solar system occupied by billions of irregularly shaped bodies or "minor planets"

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

SIZE AND MASS

• 3 billion billion tons accumilitively
• The asteroids range in size
• From 940 km (ceres) to 20 feet (1991BA)

MAKE UP

• Made up of billions of irregular bodies
• Over 7000 are identified and labled
• Each is metallic, sillicate, or carbonaceous

ORBITAL PROPERTIES

Asteroids orbit the Sun in the same direction as planets and rotate

Gaps in the belt are formed by the distance and gravitational pull of nearby planets

Larger bodies sometimes "eject" asteroids from their resonant orbit

GRAVITATIONAL DEAD ZONES

• Cosmic tug of war between gas giants for astroids
• Asteroids sometimes ejected and fixed in the dead zone of a planet
• Trojan - a single asteroid following in Neptune's zone
• Apollo - a group of asteroids between Mars and Earth

LOCATION

LOCATION

• Between Mars and Jupiter separating the giants
• Circular ring orbiting the sun
• Isolated bodies who broke away (Amor, Atton)
• Not the only belt, one behind Neptune
• Main belt is 152 - 359 miles from the sun

Untitled Slide

ORIGIN

FAILED PLANET

• First theory was destroyed planet
• Now theorized as a planet that failed to form
• The combined mass would be smaller then the moon's
• Juliters' formation caused the rubble to form protoplanets
• Protoplanets were smashed together by Jupiters' gravity

4.6 billion years ago these terrestrial materials failed to unify and instead of forming a single dwarf planet now litter the recesses of our solar system

EFFECT

PLANETARY COLLISION

• Break away and impact planets
• The Chelyabinsk meteor in Russia 15 February 2013
• Theorized that meteorites wiped out dinosaurs
• Asteroids struck early earth and helped to form its crust

SOLAR SYSTEM COMPREHENTION

• Japanese probe Hayabusa shows some asteroids date back to early SS
• Plans in motion to study Ceres, the largest specimen
• Planetary Resources Inc. announced mission to asteroid for water and precious metals
• NASA's Dawn mission, launched in 2007, began exploring Vesta in 2011