Our Asteroid Belt Is Slowly Disappearing

[+thexfile Subscriber²]

The asteroid belt is found orbiting between Mars and Jupiter and is a vast collection of rocks that is thought to be a planet that never formed. When our Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago, the material in this region should have coalesced into a planet.

A team of astronomers led by Julio Fern´andez from the Universidad de la República in Uruguay has calculated precisely how fast this depletion of asteroid belt material is progressing. They found that the asteroid belt is currently losing approximately 0.0088% of the portion of the asteroid belt that's still participating in the ongoing collisions.

That might sound like a small number, but it represents a significant flow of material when considered over the immense timescales of Solar System evolution.

https://www.sciencealert.com/our-asteroid-belt-is-slowly-disappearing-a-new-study-reveals-its-fate

 

 

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Losing  0.0088% of the portion [...] per what? Day, year, billion years?

[FloatingFatMan]

On 01/10/2025 at 13:18, Nik Louch said:

Losing  0.0088% of the portion [...] per what? Day, year, billion years?

Oh noes! We're all doomed!!