The asteroid belt of the solar system lies between the orbits of which two planets?
- A.Earth and Mars
- B.Mars and Jupiter
- C.Jupiter and Saturn
- D.Saturn and Uranus
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid belt is a broad band of rocky bodies, from dust-sized grains to bodies hundreds of kilometres across, going round the Sun between the orbit of Mars and that of Jupiter. They are generally taken to be material that never came together into a planet, because the powerful gravity of Jupiter kept disturbing it.
Option A is wrong because nothing of the kind lies between the Earth and Mars. Options C and D place the belt among the outer planets, where the Sun is instead circled by the giant planets and their many moons; far beyond Neptune lies a different zone, the Kuiper belt, which is where Pluto belongs. The asteroid belt is also the boundary used to divide the inner terrestrial planets from the outer giant planets.
Read the full article: Solar System and the Earth: Planets, Moon and Motions
Practice Questions
View allWhich is the hottest planet of the solar system?
- A.Mercury
- B.Venus
- C.Mars
- D.Jupiter
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Venus is wrapped in a very thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide, which lets sunlight in but does not let the heat escape.
Read the full explanation →Approximately how long does sunlight take to reach the Earth?
- A.8 minutes 20 seconds
- B.1.3 seconds
- C.4.2 years
- D.24 hours
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The Sun is about 149.6 million kilometres from the Earth, a distance called one astronomical unit, and light travels about three lakh kilometres in a second.
Read the full explanation →Which is the largest planet of the solar system?
- A.Saturn
- B.Neptune
- C.Jupiter
- D.Uranus
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Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest of all by both diameter and mass; it is a gas giant of hydrogen and helium.
Read the full explanation →Apart from Uranus, which planet rotates on its axis from east to west, that is in a direction opposite to most planets?
- A.Mercury
- B.Venus
- C.Mars
- D.Saturn
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Almost every planet, the Earth included, rotates from west to east, which is why the Sun appears to rise in the east.
Read the full explanation →The occurrence of seasons on the Earth is caused mainly by which of the following?
- A.The changing distance between the Earth and the Sun
- B.The rotation of the Earth on its axis
- C.The tilt of the Earth's axis along with its revolution around the Sun
- D.The gravitational pull of the Moon
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The axis of the Earth is tilted about 23.5 degrees from the vertical and keeps pointing in the same direction throughout the year.
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