The Top 10 Largest Known Asteroids in the Solar System
Some are so big they are bigger than some countries and some could fit in a large village, but the really good news is none of these asteroids are heading to earth. Which it probably a good thing looking at how big some of them are…
The Top 10 Largest Known Asteroids in the Solar System
10 – 3 Juno (Dimensions: 320×267×200)
Wiki Info: Juno, minor-planet designation 3 Juno in the Minor Planet Center catalog system, is an asteroid in the asteroid belt. Juno was the third asteroid discovered, on 1 September 1804 by German astronomer Karl L. Harding. It is the 11th-largest asteroid, and one of the two largest stony (S-type) asteroids, along with 15 Eunomia. It is estimated to contain 1% of the total mass of the asteroid belt
9 – 15 Eunomia (Dimensions: 357×255×212)
Wiki Info: 15 Eunomia is a very large asteroid in the inner asteroid belt. It is the largest of the stony (S-type) asteroids, and somewhere between the 8th-to-12th-largest main-belt asteroid overall (uncertainty in diameters causes uncertainty in its ranking). It is the largest Eunomian asteroid, and is estimated to contain 1% of the mass of the asteroid belt.
8 – 65 Cybele (Dimensions: 302×290×232)
Wiki Info: 65 Cybele is one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System and is located in the outer asteroid belt. It gives its name to the Cybele family of asteroids that orbit outward from the Sun from the 2:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter. Cybele is a X-type asteroid, meaning that it is dark in color and carbonaceous in composition. It was discovered in 1861 by Ernst Tempel and named after Cybele, the earth goddess.
7 – 87 Sylvia (Dimensions: 385×265×230)
Wiki Info: 87 Sylvia is the 8th-largest asteroid in the asteroid belt. It is a member of the Cybele group located beyond the core of the belt. Sylvia is the first asteroid known to possess more than one moon.
6 – 511 Davida (Dimensions: 357×294×231)
Wiki Info: 511 Davida is a large C-type asteroid in the asteroid belt. It was discovered by R. S. Dugan in 1903. It is one of the ten most-massive asteroids, and the 7th-largest asteroid. It is approximately 270–310 km in diameter and comprises an estimated 1.5% of the total mass of the asteroid belt. It is a C-type asteroid, which means that it is dark in colouring with a carbonaceous chondrite composition.
5 – 52 Europa (Dimensions: 380×330×250)
Wiki Info: 52 Europa is the 6th-largest asteroid in the asteroid belt, having an average diameter of around 315 km. It is not round but is shaped like a triaxial ellipsoid. It was discovered on February 4, 1858, by Hermann Goldschmidt from his balcony in Paris. It is named after Europa, one of Zeus’s conquests in Greek mythology, a name it shares with Jupiter’s moon Europa.
4 – 704 Interamnia (Dimensions: 350×304)
Wiki Info: 704 Interamnia is a very large asteroid, with an estimated diameter of 350 kilometres. Its mean distance from the Sun is 3.067 (AU). It was discovered on October 2, 1910 by Vincenzo Cerulli, and named after the Latin name for Teramo, Italy, where Cerulli worked. It is probably the fifth-most-massive asteroid after Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea, with a mass estimated to be 1.2% of the mass of the entire asteroid belt.
3 – 10 Hygiea (Dimensions: 530×407×370)
Wiki Info: 10 Hygiea is the fourth-largest asteroid in the Solar System by volume and mass, and it is located in the asteroid belt. With somewhat oblong diameters of 350–500 kilometres (220–310 mi) (217–310 miles) and a mass estimated to be 2.9% of the total mass of the belt, it is the largest of the class of dark C-type asteroids with a carbonaceous surface.
2 Pallas (Dimensions: 550±4 × 516±3 × 476)
Wiki Info: The namesake of the family is 2 Pallas, an extremely large asteroid with a mean diameter of about 550 km. The remaining bodies are far smaller. This, along with the preponderance of the otherwise rare B spectral type among its members, indicates that this is likely a cratering family composed of ejecta from impacts on Pallas.
1 – 4 Vesta (Dimensions: 572.6 × 557.2 × 446.4)
Wiki Info: Vesta, minor-planet designation 4 Vesta, is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of 525 kilometres (326 mi). It was discovered by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers on 29 March 1807 and is named after Vesta, the virgin goddess of home and hearth from Roman mythology.
