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What is an asteroid? |
Space
Asteroids share our Solar System with the planets, comets, meteoroids, moons, and of course our Sun! They are made of rock and metal, and just like planets and comets, they travel around the Sun.
What makes an asteroid an asteroid is its size. It’s not big enough to be a planet, where gravity would pull it into a round shape. Asteroids are also too big to be meteoroids, which are made of the same stuff, but are never much larger than a house. If planets are large, and meteoroids are small, asteroids are the mediums of Outer Space!
Most of them are found in one special place called the Asteroid belt, which is a huge field of asteroids, floating in space between the planets Mars and Jupiter. Scientists think that there could be over a million asteroids floating in this one place!
Home of the Asteroids
Take a look at a map of the Solar System. There’s one in the links below. See if you can spot where the Asteroid Belt is.
Can you find where we live? What about the other seven planets? Can you find them? Do you know their names?
