Talk:Asteroid belt

A. Torus vs A. torus

Please discuss about the word "torus" here. GoodGod21 (talk) 06:05, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

It's torus-shaped because many of the orbital inclinations are not close to zero. I.e. topologically it's not a flat ring; there's a depth to the belt. It's often described as 1 AU "thick", so it would be expensive in fuel cost to fly "over" it. Praemonitus (talk) 16:42, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Other asteroid belts in solar system sections

There are other asteroid belts in the solar system that should probably get their own sections

• Amor asteroid belt
• Apollo asteroid belt
• Aten asteroid belt

--Wikideas1 (talk) 08:20, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

They're not belts. Serendi^podous 13:26, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

FA status

In terms of reviewing the FA status I did a bit of upkeep, but there is some unsourced material and I'm not sure the article is fully up to date with respect to, say, DeMeo et al (2015). Praemonitus (talk) 23:56, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Sigh, You hate me don't you? Alright. I have tons of work to do today but if I have time I'll look into updating the references. Serendi^podous 11:26, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Hate you specifically? Of course not, bud. Don't take it so personally. Anyway, it's not just the citations that need to be updated. Praemonitus (talk) 14:46, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Relax dude. Exhasperated humour. Given that if I don't take this on, no one will, it would have been nice to wait until the Sedna FAR was closed. Serendi^podous 16:33, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't planning to take this to FAR; this is just a comment for anybody interested in keeping this article at FA status long-term. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 17:20, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Page 374 of "The Cambridge Guide to the Solar System" has a nice chart showing the "Asteroid distribution of spectral type with distance".[1] There's a similar chart in "Solar System evolution from compositional mapping of the asteroid belt",[2] which lists Gradie and Tedesco (1982) as its original source.[3] Praemonitus (talk) 01:51, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Turns out the last paper is accessible via the Wikipedia Library through the AAAS. There is indeed a nice chart suitable for conversion to SVG format. I'll have to scrape the rust off my Inkscape skills. Praemonitus (talk) 04:46, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Chart added. Praemonitus (talk) 02:43, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't see a discussion of the size distribution of the belt, which would perhaps be in the form of a power law or a chart. There are a number of papers available on the topic. Praemonitus (talk) 19:09, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Resolved. Praemonitus (talk) 21:55, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

"Da Belte" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Da Belte has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 July 3 § Da Belte until a consensus is reached. CycloneYoris ^talk! 23:11, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

"Belte" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Belte has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 July 3 § Belte until a consensus is reached. CycloneYoris ^talk! 23:12, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Ida

In my opinion, the most interesting asteroid photo was of Ida and its moonlet Dactyl. I would suggest adding that to the article. agb 143.43.158.178 (talk) 17:29, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

It might work in the Exploration section in place of the artist's concept illustration. Praemonitus (talk) 21:51, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

It should either be "asteroid belt" or "Asteroid Belt".

"Asteroid" is not a proper noun, but "asteroid belt" would be. So pick one. Serendi^podous 11:10, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

In published scientific papers it is always written "asteroid belt", because it is just a description rather than a proper name. Wiktionary has "Asteroid Belt" as an alternative spelling. Praemonitus (talk) 18:10, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Changed back to standard. Why no one noticed for so long I have no idea. Serendi^podous 23:09, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Origin of the term "belt"

(Section recovered from the page's history.)

The earliest quote Google Books finds is Mémoires de la Société royale des sciences de Liège, 1843, which reads in part "[…] the plane of the ecliptic and beyond Saturn or, conceivably, in the asteroid belt as suggested by Oort." But since Oort lived 1900-1992, this must be a mistake ("1943" instead of 1843).

More reliable are:

• Robert W. Gibbes et al., Eds., Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, First Meeting, Held at Philadephia, September 1848, 1849, p. 60 (On the Zodiacs of the Asteroids): "Prof. [J. S.] Hubbard of the Washington Observatory stated to the Association that he was then engaged in computing the Zodiacs of the Asteroids. The term Zodiacs, as here applied, he defined as referring to the zone or belt within which are included all possible geocentric positions of the particular asteroid in question: and the object in thus determining these belts was to facilitate researches into the past history of these remarkable bodies; since in most cases, the question of identity of a missing star, with any asteroid, may be settled at once by a simple inspection of the Zodiacs."

• Alexander von Humboldt, Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. I, Harper & Brothers, New York (NY), 1850, p. 44: "[…] and the regular appearance, about the 13th of November and the 11th of August, of shooting stars, which probably form part of a belt of asteroids intersecting the Earth's orbit and moving with planetary velocity" (translated from the German by E. C. Otté). The 1845 edition does not use that expression.

• Robert James Mann, A guide to the knowledge of the heavens, Jarrold, 1852, p. 171 and in the 1853 edition, p. 216: "The orbits of the asteroids are placed in a wide belt of space, extending between the extremes of […]"

• The Christian Examiner, Vol. LVII (July-November 1854), p. 219: "For in Professor Peirce's demonstration of this hypothesis, he shows that the ring is sustained by the power of the exterior satellites; and remarks that the belt of asteroids just within the powerful masses of Jupiter and Saturn is in that place where it is most nearly possible for a ring to be sustained about the Sun." The article qives its reference as Benjamin Peirce, On the constitution of Saturn's ring, Astronomical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 17-19 (16 June 1851), but that article never mentions the word "belt". However, see The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal 1857 quote, below.

• Joseph Allen Galbraith and Samuel Haughton, Manual of Astronomy, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, London, 1855, pp. 13-14: "In the annexed figure, which is drawn to scale, the belt of Asteroids enclosed between the orbits of Flora and Euphrosyne is represented in its true position and breadth, lying between Mars and Jupiter. […] There are, without doubt, many more bodies than the 33 mentioned in the Table circulating round the Sun within the limits of this belt […]"

• Thomas Anderson, William Jardine, John Hutton Balfour, Henry Darwin Rogers, (Eds.), The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, Vol. 5 (January-April 1857), p. 191: "[Professor Peirce] then observed that the analogy between the ring of Saturn and the belt of the asteroids was worthy of notice."

• Hannah Mary Bouvier Peterson, Bouvier's Familiar Astronomy, Childs & Peterson, 1857, p. 57: "[The asteroids] are situated in a belt or zone only about nine hundred million of miles in width."

• Jacob Ennis, The Origin of the Stars, 1867, p. 292: "[The asteroids] are probably a few hundred in number, about eighty having been discovered in the last twenty years, and they are included within a belt about 150,000,000 miles broad. In view of the dimensions of the rings which formed the planets as given in the thirtieth section, we cannot suppose that a single ring occupied all the space within the asteroid belt."

• Albert Taylor Bledsoe, Editor, The Southern Review, Vol. VIII, No. 15 (July 1870), p. 165: "If this [nebular] hypothesis be true, it is at least conceivable that while in one stage of the condensation great planets should be formed, in another period there would result a multitude of small bodies similar in all respects to those which constitute the great asteroid belt".

In conclusion, the term "belt" (as a span of latitude) had long been in use to designate the zodiac (and features of Jupiter). "Asteroid belt" seems to have been used for the first time by a translator of Humboldt, in 1850, but that may be accidental (the original German text does not use the German word "Gürtel" ("belt"); "Asteroidengürtel" appears in the 1879 edition, though). Widespread use apparently begins ca. 1851, probably under the aegis of American astronomer Benjamin Peirce, and was undoubtedly influenced by the concept of belt or ring borrowed from the nebular hypothesis. Urhixidur (talk) 17:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Digging further into German sources, G. A. Jahn, > Unterhaltungen für Dilettanten und Freunde der Astronomie, Geographie und Meteorologie, Leipzig, 1852, p. 340: "[…] so dass man jetzt deren 20 kennt die man als Stellvertreter eines grössern Planeten zwischen der Mars und der Jupitersbahn betrachten kann obgleich sie einen so breiten Gürtel bilden dass die in der Bode schen Reihe für sie bestimmte Entfernung nicht mehr passt", which my poor German translates roughly as "[…] so that one knows some 20 [planetoids] now, and placing them between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter forms so broad a belt that the distance determined in Bode's Law no longer has any meaning." Not very convincing, and no other German book before that date (1852) mentions "Gürtel" along with "Ceres, Pallas, Vesta". Urhixidur (talk) 18:54, 21 November 2008 (UTC)