Why is there an asteroid belt?
- Rocky planetismals survived in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter because they did not grow together into a planet.
- Jupiter’s gravity, through the influence of orbital resonance, stirred up asteroid orbits and prevented them from accreting into a planet.
How are meteorites related to asteroids?
- A meteor is only a flash of light that occurs when particles enter our atmosphere at high speeds, whilst a meteorite is body that actually makes it through and lands on earth. Most meteorites are pieces of asteroids.
- Primitive meteorites are simple mixtures of rock and metal, sometimes also containing carbon compounds and small amounts of water.
- Processed meteorites appear to be pieces of large asteroids that underwent differentiation into a core-mantle-crust structure. Some are made of mostly iron and some are rocky suggesting they either came from the core or crust of an asteroid.