The asteroid belt looks dense in every diagram ever printed in a textbook, but every spacecraft sent through it since 1972 has crossed without hitting a single asteroid — because the real belt is 99.9% empty space, spread across a region larger than Earth’s entire orbit

Textbook diagrams enlarge asteroids until the belt looks packed. NASA's own scale estimates show why spacecraft cross it safely and why planned flybys require precise targeting. The post The asteroid belt looks dense in every diagram ever printed in a textbook, but every spacecraft sent through it since 1972 has crossed without hitting a single asteroid — because the real belt is 99.9% empty space, spread across a region larger than Earth’s entire orbit appeared first on Space Daily .