Bananas for Scale
Ceres

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Ceres

The largest object in the asteroid belt/Deep Space

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system. NASA's Dawn spacecraft orbited Ceres from 2015 to 2018, discovering bright salt deposits in Occator Crater that suggest recent geological activity. Ceres contains roughly a third of the entire mass of the asteroid belt.

Measurements

Mean diameter939,400 m
31.3 trillionSmoke particles
1.7 quadrillionSalt crystals
36.1 millionGuitar picks
Mass938 quintillion kg
9.4 quadrillionLocomotive weights
2.6 trillionEmpire State Building masses
Mean orbital speed17,905 m/s
2.33Orbiting satellites
8,953Houseflies
2.34ISS orbital speeds
Surface temperature168 K
9.3 hundredthsMolten steel pours
8.6 tenthsDry ice surfaces
2.9 hundredthsSun surfaces

Average, ranges from about 110 K to 235 K

Sidereal day length32,667 s
15.7 trillionthsDinosaur extinctions ago
5.6 trillionthsMesozoic eras

About 9.074 hours

Mean distance from the Sun414 billion m
934 millionEmpire State Buildings
46.8 millionMount Everests
Browse more in Deep Space