An asteroid is a small rocky object that orbits the sun, mostly found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
It comes from Greek *asteroeidēs*, meaning 'star-like', from *astēr* 'star' and *-oeidēs* 'form, like'. Early astronomers named them this because they looked like tiny moving stars through telescopes.
Asteroids look like stars from Earth, but they’re actually more like leftover building blocks of planets. Studying them is like digging through the solar system’s construction trash to see how everything was first put together.
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