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Where is the main asteroid belt located?

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Illustration showing a massive asteroid above a city map with a dinosaur silhouette for scale, highlighting the asteroid's size compared to major urban areas. — Asteroid This rock would take out more than just a *T. rex*.

The main asteroid belt is located in the region of interplanetary space situated between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.12

More specifically, this region—often referred to as the main belt—consists of orbits with mean distances from the Sun ranging between 2.06 and 3.28 astronomical units (AU). Within this area, the distribution of asteroids is not uniform; it is characterized by Kirkwood gaps, which are regions where gravitational resonances with Jupiter have depleted the number of asteroids.2