It was believed that the asteroid belt, the area between Mars and Jupiter, may at one time have been the location of another planet which was pulverized by a cosmic collision with another body such as a comet travelling through our solar system. This theory has been discarded and current thinking is that the asteroid belt simply represents material from the early stages of our solar system which simply failed to form into planetary forms.

As of mid-2007, more than 150,000 asteroids have been identified with Ceres, the largest known asteroid, measuring over 900 kilometers across and to be comprised of water by up to 25%! In fact, more than 200 asteroids have been discovered so far which measure at least 100 kilometers in diameter. For an extensive list of asteroids with associated details (discoverer etc), click here.