Our Busy Solar System

[FLO]

Our Busy Solar System

Our Solar System is a busy place. Although the major planets get the most press, a swarm of rocks, comets, and asteroids also exist. The above plot shows the placement of known inner Solar System objects on 2002 July 20. The light blue lines indicate the orbits of planets. The green dots indicate asteroids, officially known as minor planets. The red dots indicate asteroids that come within 1.3 Earth-Sun distances (AU) of the Sun and so pose an increased (although small) collision risk with the Earth. Comets appear as dark blue squares, while dark blue points are Jupiter Trojans, asteroids that orbit just ahead of, or just behind Jupiter. Note that most asteroids of the inner Solar System orbit between Mars and Jupiter in the main asteroid belt. Every day this plot shifts with objects nearer the Sun typically shifting the most.

Credit & Copyright: MPC, CBAT, Harvard CfA, IAU

http://tinyurl.com/jcnxe

[The Warthog]

OK, with that much stuff in the asteroid belt (and I know you can fly a spaceship through there without much chance of hitting one) would it look like a diffuse ring to an observer out as far as Pluto?

[GordonCopestake]

It's a little misleading as the actual size of the objects bears no relation to the size of the symbols used to represent them. A single pixel on this scale would vastly larger than the astroid it is intended to represent. However it does give some idea as to just how many objects are out there. And you can bet your bottom dollar that we bearly know about half of them!

[FLO]

Here is the StarryNight Inner Solar System map for comparison: