Asteroid Belt
The ring of asteroids whose orbit around the Sun is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
The total number is estimated at around 75 000 and 100 000. Several thousand have already been catalogued. For a long time, it was thought that they were the remnants of a destroyed planet. However, the current theory is that they are the dispersed matter of a larger planet that never actually formed because the condensation of this matter into a larger whole was prevented by Jupiter's powerful gravitational force.
The first asteroids, which remain the most widely known, were discovered at the beginning of the 19th century in the asteroid belt: Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta. Ceres, Pallas and Vesta are the three largest[1] bodies in the belt.
Astronomy (Table)
| Asteroid No. | Name | Diameter (Average) | Date of Discovery |
Discovered by | Symbol |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ceres | 940 km | January 1, 1801 | Giuseppe Piazzi | 
|
| 2 | Pallas | 512±3 km | March 28, 1802 | Heinrich Olbers | 
|
| 3 | Juno | 267 km | September 1, 1804 | Karl Ludwig Harding | 
|
| 4 | Vesta | 516 km | March 29, 1807 | Heinrich Olbers | 
|
| 5 | Astraea | 117 km | December 8, 1845 | Karl Ludwig Hencke | |
| 6 | Hebe | 195 km | July 1, 1847 | Karl Hencke | |
| 7 | Iris | 209 km | August 13, 1847 | John Russel Hind | |
| 8 | Flora | 135 km | October 18, 1847 | John Hind | |
| 9 | Metis | 190 km | April 15, 1848 | Andrew Graham | |
| 10 | Hygiea | 409 km | April 12, 1849 | Annibale de Gasparis | |
| 11 | Parthenope | 162 km | May 11, 1850 | Annibale Gasparis | |
| 12 | Victoria | 113 km | September 13, 1850 | John Hind | |
| 13 | Egeria | 208 km | November 2, 1850 | Annibale Gasparis | |
| 14 | Irene | 182 km | May 19, 1851 | John Hind | |
| 15 | Eunomia | 272 km | July 29, 1851 | Annibale Gasparis | |
| 16 | Psyche | 250 km | April 17, 1852 | Annibale Gasparis | |
| 42 | Isis | 100 km | May 23, 1856 | N.R. Pogson | |
| 52 | Europa | 300 km | February 4, 1858 | Goldschmidt, H. | |
| 511 | Davida | 326 km | May 30, 1903 | Raymond Smith Dugan | |
| 704 | Interamnia | 317 km | October 2, 1910 | V. Cerulli | |
| 3045 | Alois | January 8, 1984 | Joe Wagner |
See also
Weblinks
- Wikipedia: Asteroids in fiction
- Wikipedia: Titius-Bode law
- Ceres, Pallas Vesta and Hygeia (GravitySimulator.com, 2007)
- NASA: Dawn-Mission
- list of known asteroids (Astrodienst)
- NASA: Near-Earth Object Program
- The Centaur Research Project (Robert von Heeren)
- Pictures of Vesta by Dawn (Spiegel, 2013; German)
Bibliography
- Demetra George, 1986, Asteroid Goddesses: The Mythology, Psychology and Astrology of the Reemerging Feminine, ACS Publications, Inc.
