asteroid belt

The Asteroid Belt is the torus-shaped region of the solar system between Mars and Jupiter where many asteroids orbit, which includes more than 90% of known minor planets. The term is also used in a more general sense for various regions of the solar system with smaller populations of similar bodies, so the above-defined asteroid belt may be called the main asteroid belt or main belt and an asteroid within it a main belt asteroid (MBA). Among the other asteroid populations (called asteroid families):

• Trojan asteroids (or just Trojans), orbiting in the Trojan Points, i.e., the Sun-Jupiter Lagrangian points, L4 and L5. Smaller populations are in the equivalent points for other planets, so they are sometimes distinguished as Jupiter Trojans versus, e.g., Neptune Trojans.
• near Earth asteroids (NEAs), i.e., rocky near-Earth objects (rocky NEOs, as opposed to NEOs that are comets).