Who discovered the asteroid belt?
Before the discovery of the Asteroid Belt, many astronomers and mathematicians wondered why it is that the planets are arranged in the orbits that we see today. Foremost amongst their questions was: ‘Why is there such a large gap between Mars and Jupiter?’ There were many theories put forward in an attempt to explain this anomaly, but the first one that contemplated the existence of the Asteroid Belt was proposed by Thomas Wright in the mid-18th Century; he thought that it might contain a planet that had been smashed apart by a comet.
