How big is the asteroid belt?

The asteroid belt lying between Mars and Jupiter consists of a ring approximately 184 million miles wide, extending from 186 million miles from the sun to 370 million miles from the sun. Tens of thousands of objects orbit in this zone, mostly rocky asteroids.

The name "asteroid belt" may conjure images of a densely packed ring of debris, but in reality, the asteroid belt is relatively sparse due to its enormous size. The entire mass of every object in the belt amounts to about half the mass of Earth's moon. The largest object in the belt is the dwarf planet Ceres, which is approximately 590 miles in diameter.