What are asteroids and where are they?
Asteroids are small bodies orbiting the Sun. Almost all of them (99.8%) move in orbits between those of Mars and Jupiter, in a zone known as the Asteroid Belt.
How many asteroids exist and how many been studied so far?
About 100,000 and 2,000 respectively.
How were asteroids created?
Asteroids are supposed to represent space debris scattered by the perturbing effects of Jupiter’s gravity.
What is the estimated total mass of the asteroids?
The estimated total mass of all the asteroids is less than 0.1 per cent of the Earth’s mass.
What is the size range of the asteroids?
Asteroids generally range in diameter from less than a kilometer to about 800 km.
