The asteroid belt is located between which two planets?

The asteroid belt is located between which two planets?

• A. Mars and Jupiter
• B. Earth and Mars
• C. Jupiter and Saturn
• D. Venus and Earth

Answer: (A)

The asteroid belt sits in a region of space where rocky bodies orbit the Sun in a ring between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This zone is home to many individual rocks, and it never merged into a planet because Jupiter’s strong gravity kept perturbing their orbits and prevented them from coalescing. As a result, there is a belt of debris rather than a single world, roughly spanning about 2.1 to 3.3 astronomical units from the Sun—clearly between Mars and Jupiter. The other locations would place the belt inside Mars’ orbit, between gas giants farther out, or between Venus and Earth, none of which correspond to the actual asteroid-belt region.

The asteroid belt sits in a region of space where rocky bodies orbit the Sun in a ring between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This zone is home to many individual rocks, and it never merged into a planet because Jupiter’s strong gravity kept perturbing their orbits and prevented them from coalescing. As a result, there is a belt of debris rather than a single world, roughly spanning about 2.1 to 3.3 astronomical units from the Sun—clearly between Mars and Jupiter. The other locations would place the belt inside Mars’ orbit, between gas giants farther out, or between Venus and Earth, none of which correspond to the actual asteroid-belt region.