asteroid science definition

Any of numerous small solar system bodies that orbit the Sun primarily in the asteroid belt , a region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids are intermediate in size between planets and meteoroids with diameters roughly between one hundred and several hundred kilometers. While more than 1,800 asteroids have been cataloged, and as many as a million or more smaller ones may exist, their total mass has been estimated to be less than three percent of the Moon's. Asteroids are thought to be left over from the early formation of the solar system, when planetesimals in a protoplanetary disk  were scattered after coming under Jupiter's gravitational influence. The continuing collision of planetesimals that remained between Jupiter and Mars caused many of them to fragment, creating the asteroids that exist today. Also called minor planet, planetoid.