Asteroids, Meteors, Meteorites, and Comets

Asteroids, Meteors, Meteorites, and Comets — page 7
CHAPTER 1 AmAzing Asteroids Asteroids are small rocky bodies that orbit or travel around the Sun In general they are materials left over from the formation of planets or are created when other bodies in space collide and break apart Most of the rocky asteroids move around the Sun in elliptical orbits in the same direction of the Sun’s rotation rotation Such motion is termed prograde Looking down on the solar system from a vantage point above Earth’s North Pole an observer would find that prograde orbits are counterclockwise Orbits in a clockwise direction are called retrograde Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter are a host of asteroids about 1,000 km 600 miles or less in diameter that orbit in the nearby ring called the asteroid belt Many astronomers consider the asteroid belt a demarcation point between the inner solar system consisting mainly of the terrestrial planets and the outer solar system It is because of their small size and large numbers relative 10