Can Mars Effect the Asteroid Belt?

[Giuseppe Mayart]

I was looking at this picture of the asteroid belt on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:InnerSolarSystem-en.png

And assuming that the picture is somewhat accurate in the placing of distance between objects in the solar system, I couldn’t help but wonder if it’s possible that the gravitational pull of Mars may potentially draw in wayward asteroids towards Earth and the other terrestrial planets. Is this accepted as a possible scenario in astrophysics?

 

[Garth]

Yes, if the asteroids are perturbed from the main belt to be close enough to Mars.

The Hungaria Family of asteroids may be close enough to Mars for this to be a regular feature of evaporation from the family.

Garth