Minor planet 17137

// Main-belt asteroid

Only about 15 km across — a mountain-sized lump of rock.

// Data-inspired illustration— not a photograph

Uncommon11%

◆ Discovery points15,817

Bottom 19% for a Solar System body

◆ Badge breakdown11

RareBy the Numbers
identified purely by a number, with no name at all
+2,940
RareMain-Belt Asteroid
orbits between Mars and Jupiter
+2,247
RareFailed Planet
Main-belt asteroids are leftover building blocks — planetesimals that never combined into a planet, held apart by Jupiter's pull.
+2,247
RareSmaller Than the Moon
If you gathered every asteroid in the belt into one body, it would be smaller than the Moon.
+2,030
RareMostly Empty
Asteroids are spread so thinly that a spacecraft can cross the entire belt without any special aiming — the odds of hitting one are tiny.
+2,030
RareMinor Body
an asteroid, trojan, centaur or trans-Neptunian object — not a planet, moon or comet
+1,094
Uncommon0.2% of the Rest
Everything in the Solar System put together, apart from the Sun, adds up to less than 0.2% of its mass. The Sun is almost the whole story.
+909
UncommonIt Wanders
Unlike the stars, this object doesn't sit still on the sky — night to night it drifts against the background, which is exactly how the ancients spotted the planets.
+909
UncommonOne Family, One Cloud
Everything here — Sun, planets, moons, this body — condensed from a single spinning cloud of gas and dust about 4.6 billion years ago.
+909
CommonSpace-Age Discovery
first catalogued in 1957 or later
+392
CommonCatalogue Designation
known only by a survey or catalogue label, never given a name
+110