Asteroid Belt  The Asteroid Belt  Some examples of asteroids in
the main belt. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JAXA/ESA  The
strong gravitational attraction of Jupiter prevented the
formation of planets in the region that is currently occupied by
the main asteroid belt. But the drama of the arrested planetary
development turns out to have fortunate consequences: The
asteroids in the main belt preserve the original state of the
young solar system.  The asteroids differ in shape and size. The
largest objects reach over 500 kilometers in size. Ceres, with
its nearly 1000 km diameter, is the only object in the asteroid
belt classified as a "dwarf planet". Dwarf planets are objects
in orbit around the Sun that have contracted into the form of a
sphere due to their large mass. The difference to "normal"
planets is that dwarf planets were not able to clear their orbit
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