How dense is the asteroid belt?

Question

In sci-fi movies, spaceships flying through asteroid belts are shown dodging between huge floating boulders. Is our asteroid belt really like that? Or, if you were on one of the asteroids would you even be able to see the other asteroids? If you could see other asteroids, would you see them as big rocks, or would they be so far away you would only see little star-like lights?

I've never heard of anyone from NASA saying anything about space-probes going to the outer planets being in danger when flying through the asteroid belt. So, I figured that the sci-fi scenes were probably over-dramatizations.

Also, I've read that the asteroid, (now supposedly a dwarf-planet), Ceres contains like 30-40% of the asteroid belt's mass. Since the asteroid belt covers such a huge area, it seemed like, if so much of the mass was concentrated in Ceres, the rest of the asteroid belt must be pretty sparsely populated.

Answer 1

The pictures that you have seen are really not pictures, they are maps. Each dot shows where an asteroid is but the dots are WAY bigger than the asteroids would appear if the belt was small enough to fit in the picture. In reality the asteroids are so small and far apart that you could pass through the middle of the belt and never see an asteroid.

Answer 2

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How dense is the asteroid belt?
In sci-fi movies, spaceships flying through asteroid belts are shown dodging between huge floating boulders. Is our asteroid belt really like that? Or, if you were on one of the asteroids would you even be able to see the other asteroids? If you could see other asteroids, would you see them as...

Answer 3

The asteroid belt has not had an original thought for millenia. Or am I being dense?

The asteroid belt is not anywhere near as dense as depicted in science fiction movies. If it were, it would reflect light in much the same way as Saturn's rings, with the result being we'd see a bright band in the nighttime sky, one that would obscure our view of the outer planets.

Answer 4

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Your suspicions are correct. The asteroid belt essentially looks like empty space. Even the largest asteroids are really tiny, and they are spread through an enormous volume of space. There are no photographs of the asteroid belt because the asteroids are too faint and too far apart. There are lots of photographs of single asteroids traversing a starry background (in fact that's how asteroids are discovered), but the odds of getting even two asteroids in the same field of view are really tiny...I don't think I've ever seen such a photo.

Answer 5

All the "local" asteroid groups are just huge but not very dense. Much less dense than the Saturn rings and even those are only dense from a photographic long distance shot. You would not be able to photograph the asteroid belts.

Answer 6

You are correct, sir. Ceres does comprise a significant quantity of the mass of the asteroid belt, around 25% to 30%.

Since they reside in the Main Belt at a distance of between 2 and 4 AU's, the asteriods in the belt have to spread themselves out over an area of roughly 377 billion square miles of space. They are really spread out.

Answer 7

It all depends on your speed and if u are going against the flow or with it. I think I have Sean some info on flying a space craft through Saturn's belt.

Answer 8

Always trusty wikipedia has a great article on the asteroid belt. Hope it helps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt