What are the diameters of the largest asteroids?

What are the diameters of the largest asteroids?

The largest asteroid by far is 1 Ceres. It is 914 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.

What is the diameter of a comet?

As a rule of thumb, comets are about 10 km in diameter. Halley is about 16 x 8 x 8 km; Hale-Bopp was one of the biggest comets every seen, with a diameter twice that of Halley. But the typical comet is about 10 km in size, but of course is odd shaped since such small objects will not be spherical shaped.

What is the size and shape of asteroids?

Nearly all asteroids are irregularly shaped, although a few of the largest are nearly spherical, such as Ceres. They are often pitted or cratered — for instance, Vesta has a giant crater some 285 miles (460 km) in diameter. The surfaces of most asteroids are thought to be covered in dust.

What is the diameter of the smallest asteroid?

Astronomers have obtained observations of the smallest asteroid ever characterized in detail. At 2 meters (6 feet) in diameter, the tiny space rock is small enough to be straddled by a person in a hypothetical space-themed sequel to the iconic bomb-riding scene in the movie “Dr. Strangelove.”

What is the biggest asteroid to hit Earth?

The Chelyabinsk meteor
The Chelyabinsk meteor was estimated to have caused over $30 million in damage. It is the largest recorded object to have encountered the Earth since the 1908 Tunguska event. The meteor is estimated to have an initial diameter of 17–20 metres and a mass of roughly 10,000 tonnes.

What size is a meteor?

The majority of visible meteors are caused by particles ranging in size from about that of a small pebble down to a grain of sand, and generally weigh less than 1-2 grams.

What are some interesting facts about asteroids?

Interesting facts about asteroids. Asteroids are small Solar System bodies that orbit the Sun. Made of rock and metal, they can also contain organic compounds (some scientists suggest that asteroids could have brought they necessary chemicals to start life on Earth).

What are facts about asteroids?

Facts about asteroids Asteroids are small, rocky objects that orbit the Sun. The first asteroid was Ceres, discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801. There are currently over 600,000 known asteroids in our solar system. Most asteroids are found orbiting in the Asteroid Belt, a series of rings located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

What does asteroid mean?

Kids Definition of asteroid. : one of thousands of rocky objects that move in orbits mostly between those of Mars and Jupiter and have diameters from a fraction of a mile to nearly 500 miles (800 kilometers)