The main asteroid belt contains a surprising diversity of objects, ranging from primitive ice-rock mixtures to igneous rocks. The standard model used to explain this assumes the violent dynamical evolution of the giant-planet orbits. Here, this evolution is shown to lead to the insertion of primitive trans-Neptunian objects into the outer belt, implying that the observed diversity of the asteroid belt is not a direct reflection of the intrinsic compositional variation of the proto-planetary disk, but rather of dynamical evolution.
- Harold F. Levison
- William F. Bottke
- Kleomenis Tsiganis
