| Orbits of the 3 known main-belt comets (red lines), the 5 innermost planets (black lines; from the center outward, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter), a sample of 100 main-belt asteroids (orange lines), and 2 "typical" comets (Halley's Comet, and Tempel 1, target of the recent Deep Impact mission) as blue lines. Positions of the main-belt comets and planets on March 1, 2006, are plotted with black dots. Image courtesy of Pedro Lacerda (Univ. Hawaii; Univ. Coimbra, Portugal) |
