The First Asteroid.

OK, that title to this blog is a little misleading.  No one has any idea what or where the first asteroid is or was.  I should have said what was the first asteroid to be seen by a human who knew that it was something more than a speck of light.  Would you believe that it was way back on this day in 1801?

Giuseppe Piazzi discovered it and named it Ceres.  At first he thought that it was a comet and later he thought it was a planet and named it Ceres.  It was orbiting our sun between Mars and Jupiter.  Asteroids are what you may call minor planets or failed planets.  They just never acquired enough mass to be classified as a planet, it is 606 miles in diameter.  Some thought that it may have been a comet but it wasn't active enough to be a comet, no out-gassing and thus no tail.  Here is an example of three asteroids.

As you can see in the above picture, they are large chunks of rock that come in all kinds of shapes and sizes.  The larger ones seem to be big enough and possess enough gravity to pull themselves into spheres.  That is why they are sometimes referred to as minor planets.  OK, that is enough useless information that you will probably never use, so just have a great New Year and have a great day and a great year, you hear?