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Portable Network Graphic  |  1996-04-23  |  35KB  |  516x386  |  8-bit (151 colors)
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OCR: ASTEROID COLLISIONS BEFORE AFTER AROUND 4.6 BILLION years ago, the Small Vaporized asteroid belt was about 1,200 times asteroid asteroid more massive than it is today. The belt Crater at that time included many hundreds of objects larger than Ceres (the largest-known asteroid today). When these objects collided, Jupiter's gravity prevented them from sticking together to form a planet; instead, they tended to split into smaller pieces. Many of these spread around the Solar System, cratering the rocky planets and moons or falling into the Sun. CRATERS A low-energy impact destroys a small asteroid and forms a crater on the surface of a larger asteroid. CRATERS FRAGMENTED FAMILY FACT ASTEROID FILE