Is there a picture of the asteroid belt, is there even enough light reflection to even take a picture?

Question

I based my question on the assumption that the asteroid belt is dense enough to support enough light reflection for a picture.
I guess the real question is, how dense is the asteroid belt?

Answer 1

The average distance between asteroids is about 1 million miles. While it is believed that there may be over 1 billion asteroids within the "belt", the amount of space is enormous so it's not like in SciFi where you'd have to bob and weave your way through it. You could fly right through this region and not see an asteroid.

Answer 2

It is not possible to take a picture of the entire asteroid belt. The average distance between asteroids is several million kilometers, though some get MUCH closer than that. From the surface of an asteroid, a close encounter with another would be very rare, but it does happen. As for taking a picture, one can take pictures of single asteroids, but not the entire belt. Despite what science fiction movies show, the asteroid belt is mostly empty space(This is VERY dense compared to the rest of the solar system), and the chances of a spacecraft randomly hitting an asteroid is 1 in a billion.
One notable example, however, or small "asteroids" close together are the rings of Saturn. Close up, the rings are only clumps of dust and ice, much like small asteroids. So far 9 spacecraft have gone through the asteroid belt without incident.

Answer 3

Not to dispute any of the answers given so far, but a complete response should also point out the existence of the "zodiacal light." This is a faint glow cause by reflection of sunlight on all the objects that lie in the ecliptic. The ecliptic is the plane of the planets and asteroids, of course, but it also includes dust and other junk left over from the formation of the solar system. The vast majority of the mass of the solar system lies in the ecliptic and, under the right conditions, the presence of this disc of material can be seen as a glow; not, as correctly pointed out, a collection of objects.

Check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiacal_light

Answer 4

You could fly through the asteroid belt lots of times without ever coming close enough to an asteroid to notice it.

Answer 5

The asteroid belt is far too sparse to take a picture of it.

Individual asteroids, sure. The entire belt, no.

Answer 6

This is a good web cast of an expert talking about the asteroid belt. Everything you wanted to know and didn't ask. The astronomer is not the gender bias male.

Answer 7

Nope, no pictures of the asteroid belt, but we do have pictures of some of the objects in it, specifically Eros. See this website for pic ==>http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010605.html

Answer 8

Hi. Every pictorial representation of the asteroid belt I have ever seen greatly exaggerates the density and size that it possesses. My opinion.

Answer 9

With the energy coming off of our sun we do have pictures of our astroid belt.

Pluto is out past the inner astroid belt but right before the Oort Cloud of the Outer Ring astroid belt and we have good, clear pictures of Pluto and it's sister outer ring objects that are the size of offically recogized planets in the inner solar system

If you want some pic's then check out http://www.livescience.com
or their sister site
http://www.space.com

And if you use BitTorrent they have some damn good HD pic pack's out there of hubble photo's (ALL LEGAL AND FREE!) that I use as wallpapers.

I TRULY hope you check out these two websites... Best websites on the net!!

Happy Holidays!

Answer 10

Yes