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What is the largest asteroid?
Ceres is the largest of the Main Belt asteroids in mass and diameter, with a width exceeding 900 km. (555 miles). Recent observations put the dimensions at about 930 km through Cere's rotational axis and 970 km across its equator. Ceres is a main belt asteroid and has an orbit that lies entirely within the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and thus does not approach the Earth.
Ceres is named after the Sicilian God of grain and was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801. It was the first asteroid to be recognised.
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