largest asteroid

By far the largest asteroid is 1 Ceres, with a diameter of 913 km (567 miles). It was also the first to be discovered. It was found by the Italian Giuseppi Piazzi on 1 January 1801. It got its name because Ceres, a goddess in Roman mythology, was associated with Sicily, where Piazzi was born. The next largest asteroid after 1 Ceres is 2 Pallas, discovered in 1802. Its diameter is 523 km (325 miles). Ceres orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.7 astronomical units, in the main asteroid belt. It contains one third of the total mass of the thousands of known asteroids. Though it is the largest asteroid, Ceres is not the brightest because its surface is dark and reflects only 9% of the sunlight falling on it. It only reaches 7th magnitude so is never bright enough to be seen by the naked eye.