Asteroids: What they are and where they come from
When we think of the solar system, we tend to think of the Sun and the nine planets that orbit it. But there’s a lot more orbiting the Sun than just planets (and dwarf planets — we see you, Pluto!)
Take asteroids, for example. Asteroids are the debris left over from the formation of the solar system. Four and a half billion years ago, our solar system was nothing more than a rotating cloud of gas and dust. When that cloud collapsed, possibly due to the shockwaves from a nearby exploding star, its enormous gravity pulled in most of the surrounding material in an event so intense that hydrogen atoms fused into helium atoms.
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