Earth is surrounded by minor planets — look no further than the Asteroid Belt
New Horizons had eyes for Pluto and MU69, but Mariakirch is much closer to home
In the article on the life of astronomer Maria Winkelmann-Kirch I included an image of the orbit of a minor planet that is named after her.
The orbit of the minor planet Mariakirch. The half blue, half yellow circle is Mariakirch. It lies between the orbits of Jupiter (orange circle) and Mars (red circle).
The Minor Planet Center (MPC)
Minor planets are large asteroids orbiting the Sun somewhere between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. They come in various sizes and we've identified thousands of the biggest ones using telescopes on the ground. There is actually one object in this region large enough to be considered dwarf planet: Ceres. We recently sent the Dawn probe to take some images. Sadly, Mariakirch probably won't get its own probe. It's one of the millions of minor planets, orbiting in the void between Mars and Jupiter.
Mariakirch was discovered at the Palomar Observatory on September 24, 1960 during a collaborative minor planet survey involving the Palomar Observatory and the Dutch Leiden Observatory. It is 2.8 AU from the Sun and takes 4.7 years to make a full orbit. For reference, Mars is 1.5 AU from the Sun and Jupiter is 5 AU.
You can learn more about all the minor planets in our solar system by visiting the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center. It’s where I got the image for the orbit of Mariakirch. As incentive, check out this cool gif of all the known asteroids moving around the asteroid belt.
International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center