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danielravennest t1_itpxg9q wrote

Reply to comment by thejoeymonster in As many as a fifth of all asteroids in the asteroid belt may have been formed out on the fringes of the solar system. Findings suggest that both Ryugu and the CI chondrites originate from the same region of space, and could even have shared the same parent body. by marketrent

No. Our orbit is 23,455 times the size of the Earth. But there is a second dimension, above and below our orbit.

This plot shows the size of asteroid orbits relative to ours on the horizontal scale, and the tilt in degrees relative to the Earth's orbit. You can see the tilts go up to 30-40 degrees.

Any tilt above zero means when they cross our orbit's distance, they can be crossing above or below where the Earth will pass. They can only hit us if they cross our distance exactly on our path, and the Earth also happens to be at that point in our orbit at the same time.

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