Fact Sheet
Rubble Rouser
Giuseppe Piazzi, a Sicilian priest and astronomer, discovered the first asteroid on January 1, 1801. He named it Ceres, for a Sicilian goddess. It's the largest asteroid, at almost 600 miles in diameter. In the two centuries since the discovery, astronomers have assigned names to more than 10,000 asteroids, and catalogued thousands more.
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