How was the asteroid belt formed? Could it be the remains of a planet that collapsed billions of years ago?
Located between Mars and Jupiter, the asteroid belt is known to astronomers as one of the largest collections of space objects in the solar system. For many scientists, it is of considerable scientific interest.
Contrary to the popular image of an endless stream of giant rocks, the asteroid belt is largely empty. Asteroids in the belt are so rare that it is almost impossible to hit one by accident. Nevertheless, tens of thousands of asteroids are now known and their total number in the belt is in the millions. About 240 of them are larger than 100 km.
The high density of asteroids makes the belt a very active area, where collisions between asteroids often occur. As a result of the collisions, they split, crumble or stick together. This is why the number of asteroids is constantly changing.



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What does Pluto look like? :
The asteroid belt is a region of the solar system, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, occupied by a large number of irregularly shaped solid bodies of various sizes, much smaller than the eight planets of the solar system. These small bodies are called asteroids or minor planets for the largest specimen.
This region is also often referred to as the "main asteroid belt" or simply "the main belt", to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the solar system, such as nearEarth asteroids and Trojan asteroids, and to emphasize its difference from other similar regions, such as the Kuiper belt that lies beyond the orbit of Neptune, as well as the Oort cloud and the clusters of scattered disk objects.
The term "asteroid belt" came into use in the early 1850s thanks to Alexander Von Humboldt who used the term in his book "Cosmos: An Essay on the Physical Description of the World".
Given its location in the solar system, the asteroid belt serves as a boundary between the inner rocky planets and the outer giant planets.

It is curious to note that although the term "asteroid" is over two hundred years old, it has not yet been formally defined by the International Astronomical Union or any other scientific organization. Previously, the term "minor planets" was used as a synonym for the word "asteroid".
However, after the International Astronomical Union first defined the term "planet" in 2006, the term "minor planet" was officially withdrawn, and it was replaced by the category "small bodies of the solar system", which includes all irregularly shaped bodies that orbit the sun and are not planets, dwarf planets or their moons.
At the 2006 International Astronomical Union meeting, another important event took place. Ceres was reclassified as a dwarf planet. Thus, from a formal point of view, the largest asteroid in the solar system has become Vesta.







On the agenda today:
00:00 Introduction
01:47 What is the asteroid belt?
03:11 Difficulties in classifying asteroids
06:50 What are the physical characteristics of the asteroid belt ?
08:23 Orbits of the asteroids
09:51 Kirkwood's shortcomings
12:03 Collisions in the asteroid belt
14:30 What is the asteroid belt made of?
23:26 Who discovered the asteroid belt?
27:15 History of exploration of the asteroid belt
31:09 How is the asteroid belt formed?
41:06 The largest objects in the asteroid belt
41:20 Ceres, the largest asteroid in the main belt
48:25 Vesta
50:28 Pallas
53:40 Hygie
56:26 Why is the asteroid belt so important?
01:02:43 Does the asteroid belt represent a danger for the Earth?


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