Top 10 facts about asteroids | Express.co.uk
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1. The first person to discover an asteroid was Italian priest Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801. He called it Ceres, after the Roman goddess of agriculture. 2. In 2006, Ceres was reclassified as a
dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union but Nasa and others still consider it an asteroid. 3. The word ‘asteroid’, meaning star-shaped, was coined by William Herschel in 1802.
4. Over 600,000 asteroids have now been identified in the solar system. 5. Ceres is still the largest known asteroid. The smallest, 1991 BA, is only 20 feet across. 6. Ceres is almost
600 miles in diameter. The Tunguska asteroid was about 600ft in diameter. 7. Asteroids are thought to be made of materials left over from the formation of the planets. 8. Most asteroids
orbit in the asteroid belt, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.