ASTEROIDS OF THE MAIN BELT

Credit : NASA/JPL

Image of the asteroid Gaspra made by the Galileo spacecraft.

Most of the asteroids have this irregular appearance, with the exception of the largest that have a spherical shape. The asteroids in the main belt are, for now, the most numerous.

These are not the remaining of a planet: they were unable to agglomerate to form one object and their total mass is much lower than that of a planet: it reaches the twentieth of the mass of the Moon.

Below is the characteristics of some asteroids chosen among the largest and also those whose images are shown during our tour of the solar system (click the link).

Number	Name	Size en km	Semi-major axis en UA	Eccentricity	Inclination	Period in days	Chemical class
1	Ceres	940	2.7678	0.0774	11°	1682	C
2	Pallas	538	2.7739	0.2323	35°	1687	C
3	Juno	244	2.6695	0.2577	13°	1593	S
4	Vesta	576	2.3607	0.0903	7°	1324	?
5	Astrea	125	2.5759	0.1915	5°	1510	S
6	Hebe	192	2.4248	0.2018	15°	1379	S
7	Iris	203	2.3849	0.2306	6°	1345	S
8	Flore	141	2.2013	0.1561	6°	1192	S
9	Metis	168	2.3864	0.1211	6°	1347	S
10	Hygiea	429	3.1362	0.1199	4°	2029	C
45	Eugenia	130	2.7204	0.0830	7°	1663	C
146	Lucina	140	2.7190	0.0660	13°	1661	C
216	Kleopatra	217x97	2.7917	0.2534	13°	1702	M
243	Ida	56x24	2.8619	0.0450	1°	1768	S
253	Mathilde	59x47	2.6473	0.2654	7°	1596	?
324	Bamberga	242	2.6855	0.3374	11°	1607	C
377	Campania	60	2.6914	0.0778	7°	1636	?
951	Gaspra	20x12	2.2092	0.1737	4°	1199	?
3939	Huruhata	20	3.1214	0.0938	25°	2043	?

40747	1999 TK5	7	2.5540	0.2117	12°	1513	?

To know the circumstances of the discovery of asteroids, click here.