Asteroids are the byproducts of formations in the solar system, more than 4 billion years ago.

 

Asteroids are the byproducts of formations in the solar system, more than 4 billion years ago.

The birth of Jupiter in our solar system prevented any planetary bodies forming between Mars and Jupiter, causing the small objects that were there to collide with each other and fragment into asteroids.

  

In 1801, while making a star map, Italian priest and astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi accidentally discovered the first and largest asteroid, Ceres, orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Although Ceres is classified today as a dwarf planet, it accounts for a quarter of all the mass of all the known asteroids in or near the main asteroid belt.

Since about 2000, NASA has spearheaded a campaign to identify and track near-Earth asteroids. Programs like the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona and the Pan-STARRS telescopes in Hawaii specialize in identifying these objects and have each discovered thousands of asteroids, according to CNEOS(opens in new tab).