The asteroid belt

[Anomander]

Just wondered how big the planet would have been if i had not broken up (or whatever did happen to it) to form the asteroid belt?

And how big is the largest object in the belt?

Cheers!

[Planetwatcher]

The following paragraph is an excerp from the 9 Planets web site. B)
[The largest asteroid by far is 1 Ceres. It is 933 km in diameter and contains about 25% of the mass of all the asteroids combined. The next largest are 2 Pallas, 4 Vesta and 10 Hygiea which are between 400 and 525 km in diameter. All other known asteroids are less than 340 km across.]

If the mass of all the asteroids in the belt were combined, it would make a planet somewhat smaller then the Moon. <_<

[zephyr46]

http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/cat/an1.htm

Java applet

Minar Planets Center

[Matthew]

Just wondered how big the planet would have been if i had not broken up (or whatever did happen to it) to form the asteroid belt?

I believe that it never formed, because of the gravitational influences of Jupiter.

[jkmccrann]

I believe that it never formed, because of the gravitational influences of Jupiter.

That is generally agreed upon as the reason there is no planet there, although I have a slight problem with assuming that any planet in that area would not have been very large in any case. In the case of a large group of objects orbiting in a relatively small area of Space, the Asteroid Belt, that is strongly influenced by the gravity of an object like Jupiter, is it not likely that in the early Solar System there would have been numerous collisions in this area and that a large amount of the potential mass in that area could have been diverted every which way around the Solar System?

So, although there's only enough mass there now to constitute what would be an object smaller than our Moon, going back billions of years there might well have been enough mass in that area to form into a planet more in the mould of size that the terrestrial planets are, were it not for the gravity of Jupiter disrupting this process and contributing to the ejection of several asteroids to all parts of the heavens.

Just a thought, does anyone share the view that that may indeed be a possibility?

[Candy]

I read somewhere that the Asteroid Belt consists of three types of "rock". I'm not sure of the proper term. To me, this suggests three objects may have resided in the area. I started a thread along time ago playing around with the Titius-Bode Formula and "Planet V". milli360 said there was a theory of possibly two planets where the Asteroid Belt is located. I love this idea of the planet(s) exploding. Perhaps, two planets cross orbits and kaboom! Maybe, one of the planets had a moon in close proximity and got caught in the chaos. Sorry for my twist.

[astromark]

Its not unreasonable to assume that in the formation of the solar disk. Befor the sun had condenced enough to become sol. Before the planets had co-agulated into the system we now have, that things were not all so well balanced. If as a idea previously sagested, some thing the size of Mars were in colision with Earth. The resoltant debris became the Moon. Is it resonable to conclude that Jupiter's swept up some of this debris. Some of it is still wandering about the asteroid belt.

[Planetwatcher]

Since this thread started about two years ago there have been some additional discoveries in the asteroid belt. More recent findings have determined that the total mass of all the astroids from the belt combined would have had at least double the mass of previous estimates.

And perhaps more then that when asteroids flung out of their orbits by Jupiter is considered, as well as the likelyhood of a large number of the origional asteroids have crashed into other celstrial bodies, such as Earth, Moon, Mars, and Jupiter. Farther flung asteroids may even have impacted Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and possibly Uranus.

It's not impossible that the origional mass may have been as big or bigger then Mars, but we can't prove that today.

[moonatic]

Does anyone else have any theories that involve the destruction of a martian ecosystem and the exploding planet v theory

[Kaptain K]

The only "theory" that I am aware of that fits your description is by Richard C. Hoagland. Please note that theory is in qotation marks for good reason. Hoagland's ideas must be taken with a large grain of salt.