Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscript no. Bidstrup August 10, 2004 (DOI: will be inserted by hand later) The Number Density of Asteroids in the Asteroid Main-belt Philip R. Bidstrup1;2, Rene´ Michelsen2, Anja C. Andersen1, and Henning Haack3 1 NORDITA, Blegdamsvej 17, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail:
[email protected];
[email protected] 2 NBIfAFG, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail:
[email protected] 3 Geological Museum, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5-7, DK-1350 Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail:
[email protected] Received ; accepted Abstract. We present a study of the spacial number density and the shape of the occupied volume of asteroids in the asteroid main-belt, based on the 212531 asteroids currently to be found in the database of the Minor Planet Center (Juli, 2004). To obtain the number density we divide the distribution of the main-belt asteroids based on their true distances from the Sun by the occupied volume. We find a clear trend of larger densities at greater distances from the Sun. Key words. Asteroids – minor planets – Methods: data analysis 1. Introduction With Giuseppe Piazzi’s discovery of Ceres in 1801, what seemed to be an empty gap between Mars and Jupiter proved to be incorrect. Ceres was not, as the Titius-Bode “law” sug- gested, a missing planet in the Solar System but a member of the asteroid belt. Additional asteroids have since then been cataloged and today, the Minor Planet Center (Juli, 2004) counts around 200,000 objects in its database. Most of these objects form the asteroid main-belt which is widely spread ranging from 1.7 AU to 3.7 AU from the Sun.