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The first asteroid to be discovered, found by Giuseppi Piazzi from Palermo, Sicily, on 1
January 1801. It is by far the largest asteroid, 940 km (585 miles) in diameter, and its
orbit lies in the main asteroid belt at a distance of 2.77 AU from the Sun. Its mass
of 1.17×1021 is about one-third the entire mass of the asteroid belt. It reaches a maximum magnitude of 6.9, its albedo being only 9 per cent. Ceres rotates in just over 9 hours during which time its colour and brightness vary only slightly, suggesting that it is almost spherical and uniformly grey. Information from its spectrum indicates that the surface
may be similar in composition to the carbonaceous chondrite meteorites.
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