From: newsposter@andor.dropbear.id.au   
      
   On Sun, 20 Aug 2017 16:29:12 -0700 (PDT), Mr Anderson  wrote:   
   | So, I asked a question on Quora lately about it, but did not get any   
   | satisfying answers yet, so I bring it here, for more professional look.   
   | We all know that asteroid belts from movies are complete BS, but, I was   
   | thinking if there could temporarily exist a cluster of small planetoids,   
   | in which standing on one of them, you actually can see others, at let's   
   | say a few kilometers distance.   
   |   
   | I want to put such thing on orbit of my setting's main planet, and I   
   | don't know how plausible is it. In my fantasy-sf world, such cluster   
   | is used as a hub for further space travel and material base for creating   
   spaceships.   
   | Also, I want to know how long such thing could survive, even if it's   
   | short, a few thousands years time, and it would be nice if someone could   
   | tell me if that would be stable or would spit planetoids in all directions.   
      
      
   Give the main planet a decent sized moon (like earth has) and put the   
   asteroid swarms in the L4 & L5 orbital resonance spots. These are quite   
   stable, and each asteroid can "orbit" around the actual exact L4/5   
   position. I'm not sure how far they can get from that spot before   
   instability gets too much, but Jupiter has an estimated 600,000   
   asteroids over 1km diameter in each spot. You would need to scale this   
   down a lot, as Jupiter's orbit is quite large, allowing a lot of room to   
   move.   
      
   This also gets you 2 separate areas, for some built-in competition.   
      
      
   --   
   Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC.     http://andor.dropbear.id.au/   
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