Between Mars and Jupiter
Asteroid belt
A broad population of small bodies, including Ceres and Vesta, orbiting between Mars and Jupiter.
Most of the material in the belt never assembled into a planet. Jupiter’s gravity helped shape its structure, including gaps associated with orbital resonances.
The space between asteroids is enormous compared with their sizes. The dots in the Solar System view illustrate a population; they are not current asteroid positions or a navigational map.
Understand this region
The asteroid belt is mostly spaceUnderstand the belt’s sparse population, Jupiter’s resonances and the different histories preserved by its larger objects. · 3 minWhy bring asteroid material home?Connect an asteroid’s sampled surface to laboratory measurements of salts and organic compounds, with the limits of those interpretations. · 3 minExplore individual objects
14 objects in this atlas’s reviewed selection; this is not the region’s entire population.
The 3D population is schematic. Dots do not represent measured positions, density or individual tracked asteroids.
NASA · region reference ↗