Asteroids
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| Asteroid Gaspra | Asteroid Ida |
Asteroids are pieces of rock or rock and metal.
Scientists believe that asteroids were made from the pieces of our Solar System that were left over from when the Solar System was formed.
The first sight of an asteroid was in 1801 by an astronomer named Piazzi who saw an asteroid in space through his telescope. Piazzi thought that it was a planet and named it Ceres.
Asteroid means "like star".
Asteroid Gaspra was fist sighted in 1991 by the space probe Galileo.
Another asteroid photo that was taken by the space probe Galileo was Ida. Ida's photo was taken in 1993.
Ceres is the largest asteroid.
The asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter.
The asteroid belt is made up of 4,000 irregular rocks.
Scientists think that asteroids are debris of an earlier planet that blew up for some reason.
Scientists are discovering new asteroids as the space probes go deeper into space.
Each asteroid is given a catalog number and some are named for astronomers by the International Astronomical Union.