Why is Ceres so big?

Question

Ceres is by far the largest asteroid. Its diameter is almost twice the size of the diameter of the second largest asteroid, and its mass is more than 1/3 the total mass of all the asteroids in the asteroid belt.

It seems highly improbable for Ceres to be so disproportionately larger than the millions of other asteroids in the asteroid belt. Did Ceres win the lottery, or it there a theoretical explanation as to why it is so much larger?

I don't find lithium's argument about exponential distribution all that convincing. It seems like the solar system has some natural clusters, with the smaller rocky inner planets, the larger gaseous outer planets, and the asteroid belt dividing them.

Ceres still seems like an anomaly to me. I like quantum's conjecture about Jupiter being a factor -- maybe Ceres is an "aborted planet" that never got formed due to Jupiter's gravitational influence.

Answer 1

It may be that Ceres didn't originally come from the location of it's present orbit, or it may be that Ceres is simply the largest piece of debris left over after the solar system formed. Because of Jupiter's influence, the asteroid belt remains a belt - the debris doesn't have much of a chance to form into another planet; but if I were a bettin' man, I'd guess that Ceres was a chunk of rock that happened to be hanging around that area when Jupiter and the Sun formed.

Answer 2

Ceres also designated 1 Ceres is the smallest dwarf planet in the Solar System and the only one discovered in the main asteroid belt. Its name is derived from the Roman goddess Ceres — the goddess of growing plants, the harvest, and of motherly love. It was discovered on January 1, 1801, by Giuseppe Piazzi. With a diameter of about 950 km, Ceres is by far the largest and most massive body in the asteroid belt, and contains approximately a third of the belt's total mass. Recent observations have revealed that it is spherical, unlike the irregular shapes of smaller bodies with less gravity. In September 2007 NASA is scheduled to launch the Dawn Mission space probe to explore the asteroid. There are numerous unverified claims that Ceres can be viewed with the naked eye, usually by those with very good eyesight and under certain conditions.

Answer 3

If they both orbit the star, the distinction between a planet and an asteroid is totally arbitrary.

The larger the object you're looking for, the rarer it is in a typical solar system. Most of the mass in a star system becomes the star. Most of the rest become largish objects which we call planets. Most of the rest of that becomes asteroids and planetary satellites.

Ceres' size is just a product of the roughly exponential distribution of particle sizes. There is one very large mass (the Sun), a few largish masses (the planets), many medium-sized masses (large asteroids and planetary satellites), and billions of very small masses (small asteroids, rocks, and dust).

No matter where you place the arbitrary size cutoff for what qualifies as an asteroid, the exponential distribution of sizes shows that it is likely you'll find only a relatively small number of objects at that size, as compared to sizes an order of magnitude less.

We chose the cutoff point somewhere around the medium-large point, where there are few objects. It should be no surprise that there is a single object with a large margin between it and the next largest object.

Answer 4

it just has luck ,i mean over time it'll get beat down like the others ,it just hasn't been hit enough yet.

Answer 5

cuz your eyes are plaing tricks on you