Asteroid Continuation Essay

Based upon astronomy class – asteroids


These days, there are approximately 9000 asteroids in which we humans know of and have studied, though the first and largest asteroid was discovered and studied back in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi. This asteroid is now known as Ceres and has a diameter of approximately 1003km, which is a huge difference from many other asteroids in our inner solar system which many are as little as 1km in diameter. Two other large asteroids known to man are named Pallas and Vesta.

There are many important groups of asteroids within our solar system, one, of course, being the asteroid belt which lies between Mars and Jupiter, and contains the majority of the asteroids within our solar system. This particular asteroid belt can also be known as the ‘main belt’. Why couldn’t these form a planet if there were so many of them? The simple answer forms around the gravitational influence of Jupiter. Jupiter’s gravitational force not only prevents this from happening, it also is the cause for what is known as Kirkwood gaps within the asteroid belt.
Another important group to mention is known as ‘Trojans’. Trojans are also in the orbit of Jupiter, on two of the Lagrangian points. Similar sets of asteroids also appear to lie in the Trojan points in almost all planetary orbits.
Another group of objects that did not form into planets, though are not deemed as asteroids due to their icy concentrate, are the Kuiper belt objects. The Kuiper belt is the source of about half of the comets that come to the inner solar system, some not much smaller than Pluto or even Charon. The largest actually found so far, is named Quaoar, and is believed to be approximately 1250km in diameter, the same size, or perhaps slightly larger than Charon, and it is belived by many astronomers, that one day we will find some Trans-Neptunian objects which are actually bigger than Pluto itself.