Have you ever wondered why our spacecrafts that have crossed the asteroid belt and gone for further exploration do not collide with these belts of millions of asteroids? There are millions of asteroids in the asteroid belt which are revolving around the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, and till date 12 spacecrafts have crossed the asteroid belt, then why does no one collide with these asteroids?
Our solar system is very big, there are many members in our solar system like planets, comets, asteroids etc. and today we will talk about asteroids, asteroids are mostly found in the asteroid belt which is located between Mars and Jupiter, millions of asteroids of small and big sizes are found in the asteroid belt. Out of them more than 1.2 million asteroids are larger than 1 km in size. Elements like asteroids, dust particles, icy bodies are found in the asteroid belt.
So the question is that despite such a large number of asteroids, why do our space probes not collide with them? What magic do the space agencies do that their probes do not collide with the asteroids, because in such a crowded place they should collide, right? No, but first let us discuss which probes have passed through the asteroid belt for their upcoming exploration journey.
To date, 12 spacecraft have passed through these asteroid belts, and the good news is that none has collided. The first space probe was Pioneer 10, launched by NASA on March 3, 1972, which entered the asteroid belt on July 15, 1972 and emerged from the belt in February 1973.
There are millions of asteroids inside the asteroid belt but they are all very far from each other, the distance between one asteroid and another is about 2.5 miles which is more than the distance between Earth and Moon, shocking right? The more shocking thing is that when space crafts pass through the asteroid belt, they hardly see the asteroids, meaning if we pass through the asteroid belt, we will not even know that it is an asteroid belt. Till date, no space craft has been able to capture the asteroids of the asteroid belt during its journey. Interesting right?
This means that if we stand on top of an asteroid and look at it, we will only see darkness all around, not any neighbour asteroid. Even with a telescope, we might not be able to see it. But why is this so? The reason is that the asteroid belt is at a distance of 2.2 to 3.2 astronomical units (AUs) from the sun, which is 350 million kilometers, and in an area with such a huge radius, the distance between just a few million asteroids is quite large. This is the reason why our space probes that pass through the asteroid belt do not collide with any asteroids.
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