Geology of solar terrestrial planets approaching Ceres at aphelion, which may constrain Dawn's ability to observe this phenomenon. Note: This info was taken directly from the main article, sources for the material are included there. Asteroids, comets, and meteoroids are all debris remaining from the nebula in which the Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago. The asteroid belt is located between Mars and Jupiter. It is made of thousands of rocky planetesimals from to a few meters across. These are thought to be debris of the formation of the Solar System that could not form a planet due to Jupiter's gravity. When asteroids collide
Formation and evolution of the Solar System and giant molecular clouds began to deplete the cloud, sending comets into the inner Solar System. The evolution of the outer Solar System also appears to have been influenced by space weathering from the solar wind, micrometeorites, and the neutral components of the interstellar medium. The evolution of the asteroid belt after Late Heavy Bombardment was mainly governed by collisions. Objects with large mass have enough gravity to retain any material ejected by a violent collision. In the asteroid belt this usually is not the case. As a result, many larger objects have been broken apart, and sometimes newer objects