Asteroids are rocky objects primarily found in the asteroid belt a region of the solar system which is as far from the Sun as Earth does and betweenthe orbits of Mars and Jupiter. These objects are sometimes called minor planets or planetoids. They are likely the leftovers from the earlyformation of the solar system and their composition may shed light on what the early solar system was like. They probably formed from theprotoplanetary disk that surrounded the sun but never had enough mass to form into the roughly spherical shape required to be considered aplanet. Despite thousands having been discovered their total collective mass is still far less than the mass of the earth. Asteroids are the big cousinsof meteoroids. They range in size from one metre to larger than one lakh metres whereas meteoroids are generally smaller than one meter indiameter but they are made from the same rocky or metallic materials. A subset of these objects the Trojan asteroids also orbit the sun with Jupiterand are in gravitationally stable points between the two called Lagrange points. It has been estimated that there are as many Trojans as there areasteroids in the asteroid belt. Asteroids that fall into the category of near earth objects have orbits that bring them in close proximity with ourplanet and a number of notable impact sites have been attributed to asteroids. As an avid reader and watcher of science articles and televisionshows I am continually frustrated by the lack of a satisfying explanation for the formation of asteroids. Plenty of verbiage is devoted to explainingwhy the asteroid belt is located where it is but almost none to how these small solid objects formed in the first place. And the few sketchy words Ihave seen on the subject do not have the ring of truth by a long shot. The explanation that asteroids simply coalesced from the gas or dust cloudfrom which the solar system originated is clearly wrong or at least it leaves out several key steps. That theory if it really is a theory anyone adheresto then it fails to explain two important things. First the differing compositions of asteroids like some rocky or some metallic and second how asmall object with minimal gravity can condense from gas and dust into a solid object. If asteroids simply condensed directly from the primal gas ordust cloud their composition would be much more homogenous both within themselves and with each other. That fact seems too obvious to requireany further explanation. Regarding their solidity imagine the amount of compressive force it would take to smash gas or dust cloud particles as fineas cigarette smoke into a solid object. The gravity of even a relatively large asteroid is far too weak to generate that kind of compression. As Iunderstand it an object has to be many miles in diameter before its gravity is sufficient to establish solidity. Yet the vast majority of space rockseven in the asteroid belt are nowhere near this size. Clearly solidity can only be achieved in large objects. And the only way to producedifferentiation between rocks and metals is in the hot interior of a planet or protoplanet where these substances melt.