Is the Asteroid Belt's Shape Misrepresented?

[DaveC426913]

In my textbooks, the Asteroid Belt has always been illustrated as a circle.

Is this animation accurate?

https://i.imgur.com/LXR0Ulq.gifv

It never occurred to me that the belt might might be intimately connected with the Trojans.

Well ... my learning about the Asteroid Belt and my learning about Trojans was several decades apart, so not too surprising.

 

[Bandersnatch]

The gif seems to depict Trojans and the Hilda group. The latter is a group in a resonance with Jupiter. These are not strictly main belt asteroids, in the same sense as the Trojans aren't.

The http://sajri.astronomy.cz/asteroidgroups/groups.htm includes depictions of other asteroid groups as well.
E.g. this one shows all the inner solar system asteroids:
http://sajri.astronomy.cz/asteroidgroups/inn-h-l.htm
You can see that the Hildas are just a small fraction of the entire population, on more circular orbits.

 

[DaveC426913]

Ah! Very cool. Thanks.