http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ mirrored file For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== The question of the origin of asteroids is still debated. All agree that they represent primitive materials and are at least as old as the planets. A few planetologists still argue that some, perhaps all, of those in the Main Belt represent a disrupted planet. But most subscribe to the concept that these are really planetesimals (accretionary bodies built up of fragments of gravity-attracted small solids that condensed and organized during the first stages of solar history) that never succeeded in building up by accretion into (a) planet(s). The reason for this failure to reach planet-size is ascribed to the perturbing influence of gravity from the Giant Jupiter. Most of these bodies today have undergone repeated collisions that knock off chunks from the target body, some of which escape to become new asteroids but much (most?) re-assemble into the collided remnant or into a neighboring asteroid to form a new shape. -- http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect19/Sect19_22.html