| The asteroid belt lies between the orbits of Mars and
Jupiter. There are so many that they are divided into different groups
such as the Trojan asteroids which are 60 degrees in front of and behind
the orbit of Jupiter. Other groups of asteroids include the Amor asteroids
which cut across the orbit of Mars and the Apollo asteroids that cut across
the orbit of the Earth and are probably to blame for the asteroid craters
on earth and in the future they might be a source of metals and other minerals
for us to mine in space.
Some of the asteroids which are close to the earth were
photographed and investigated by the space craft Galileo when it was on
it's way to Jupiter. It took the first ever close up pictures of an asteroid
and showed that the asteroid 951 Gaspa was covered in craters and had a
layer of loose fragmentscovering it.
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