Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system. It was the first member of the asteroid belt to be discovered when Giuseppe Piazzi spotted it in 1801.

Ceres’ shape suggests that its interior is layered like those of terrestrial planets such as Earth. Ceres may have a rocky inner core, an icy mantle, and a thin, dusty outer crust inferred from its density and rotation rate. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope took these images of Ceres during its 9-hour rotation.

Ceres Facts. Ceres is the closest dwarf planet to the Sun and is located in the asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter, making it the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system. Ceres is the smallest of the bodies current classified as dwarf planets with a diameter of 950km.

A ‘Megasatellite’ Orbiting Ceres Would Make a Fine Home For Humans, Scientist Says. Given all the logistics involved, it’s unlikely that humanity will ever see our way outside the Solar System to colonise exoplanets. But the possibility of settling elsewhere inside the Solar System isn’t so far-fetched.

Radiation. In space, cosmic rays and solar flares create a lethal radiation environment. One possibility for defense against this radiation is living inside of an asteroid. It is estimated that humans would be sufficiently protected from radiation by burrowing 100 meters deep inside of an asteroid.

An object with a high mass close to the Earth could be sent out into a collision course with the asteroid, knocking it off course. When the asteroid is still far from the Earth, a means of deflecting the asteroid is to directly alter its momentum by colliding a spacecraft with the asteroid.

If the comet is 10 kilometers across or larger (that is, if the impact carries an energy of more than about 100 million megatons), the resulting global environmental damage will be so extensive that it will lead to a mass extinction, in which most life forms die.

An asteroid officially called 2020 SX3 is also heading towards earth. The bad news is that this space rock is between 38 and 86 metres across, according to NASA – that’s about the size of three double-decker buses. The good news is that it should swing past our home planet (Earth) with no chance of a direct hit.

In a NASA simulation of an asteroid impact, scientists concluded they couldn’t stop a space rock from decimating Europe. Space agencies around the world took part in a NASA simulation of an asteroid-impact scenario. The experts who participated learned about a fictitious asteroid’s trajectory and had to react.

An estimated 25 million meteoroids, micrometeoroids and other space debris enter Earth’s atmosphere each day, which results in an estimated 15,000 tonnes of that material entering the atmosphere each year.

The Sylacauga meteorite fell on November 30, 1954, at 12:46 local time (18:46 UT) in Oak Grove, Alabama, near Sylacauga. It is commonly called the Hodges meteorite because a fragment of it struck Ann Elizabeth Fowler Hodges (1920–1972).

500 meteorites

Definition of astronomical unit. An AU is approximately 93 million miles (150 million km). It’s approximately 8 light-minutes. More exactly, one astronomical unit (AU) = 92,955,807 miles (149,597,871 km). Earth’s orbit around the sun isn’t a perfect circle.

Jupiter flinging asteroids at Earth ‘like a sniper’, warns scientist. A research has claimed Jupiter is actively flinging passing objects into the inner Solar System “like a sniper”, potentially threatening Earth.