(Image credit: Mode-list via Getty Images)
The asteroid belt orbits between Mars and Jupiter and is a vast collection of rocks thought to be an unformed planet. When our solar system formed 4.6 billion years ago, the material in this region should have formed a planet, but Jupiter's gravitational pull prevented this, churning the region, and the collisions became destructive rather than constructive. What remains today contains only about 3% of the Moon's mass, scattered over millions of kilometers.
Jupiter's influence didn't end there. Gravitational resonances—regions of space where asteroids' orbital periods regularly interact with Jupiter, Saturn, and even Mars—destabilize asteroid orbits, ejecting fragments either toward the inner solar system, where Earth is located, or toward Jupiter's orbit. Asteroid fragments that fail to escape are transformed into meteorite dust by collisions.
A team of astronomers led by Julio Fernández from the University of the Republic in Uruguay has precisely calculated how quickly the asteroid belt is being depleted of material. They found that the asteroid belt is currently losing approximately 0.0088% of the portion of it still involved in collisions. This may seem like a small figure, but it represents a significant influx of material when considering the vast timescales of the solar system's evolution.
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This result is particularly interesting because of how this lost mass is distributed among its various fates. About 20% is lost as asteroids and meteoroids, which occasionally cross Earth's orbit and sometimes enter our atmosphere quite spectacularly as meteors. The remaining 80% is crushed by collisions, turning into meteoritic dust, which feeds the faint glow of zodiacal dust visible in the night sky after sunset or before sunrise. Better-known asteroids, such as Ceres, Vesta, and Pallas, were excluded from the study because they had existed long enough to no longer contribute to the mass-depletion process.
Approximate true-color image of Ceres.
Understanding the process of mass loss in the asteroid belt is important and directly impacts Earth's evolution. Large bodies leaving the belt don't simply disappear into space; some eventually enter the inner solar system, where they become potential collision targets. The study shows that if we extrapolate the current rate of mass loss backward, then about 3.5 billion years ago the asteroid belt could have been approximately 50% more massive, and the rate of mass loss was roughly twice as high. This correlates remarkably well with geological data from the Moon and Earth, which show a decrease in the bombardment rate over the past several billion years.
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The asteroid belt is often considered a permanent feature of our solar system, but this study reveals that it is a dynamic structure, gradually losing material over billions of years. Layers of glassy spherules found in Earth's rocks testify to a more turbulent past, when a more massive asteroid belt showered us with far more rock debris. Today, this bombardment has slowed to a steady trickle, as the belt continues to shrink. Understanding this process not only helps us piece together the history of the impacts that shaped Earth's surface but also provides crucial data for modeling future risks from near-Earth objects.
The original version of this article was published in Universe Today magazine.
TOPICS Solar System
Mark Thompson, science broadcaster and author
Mark Thompson is known for his tireless efforts to make science accessible to the general public through television, radio, podcasts, and book appearances. He has appeared on the award-nominated BBC television show Stargazing LIVE, and his theatre show Spectacular Science has received five stars from British theatre critics. In 2018, Mark received an honorary doctorate from the University of East Anglia.
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