Asteroids are rocky worlds revolving around the sun which are too small to be called planets. They are also known as planetoids or minor planets.
There are millions of asteroids of different sizes. When it comes to size, they may be a few feet wide or hundreds of miles long. Altogether, the combined mass of all asteroids is lesser than Earth’s moon.
Giuseppe Piazzi, director of the observatory of Palermo in Sicily discovered Ceres, the first asteroid. It was mistaken as a new planet and Piazzi named it after the Roman goddess of agriculture, Ceres. Following this, more and more small bodies were discovered.
Due to the limitations of the equipment of the time, they appeared only as points of light, like stars. This inspired the astronomer Sir William Herschel to propose the term asteroid, meaning star-like or star shaped.
Hundreds of asteroids have been discovered till date and more are added every year. Millions more await discovery but may be too small to be seen from the earth.
Picture Credit : Google