Eli5: In our solar system, why are all of the gas giants past the meteor belt? Is it just a coincidence? Do other solar systems have similar organizations, with some rocky planets, a meteor belt, then gas giant planets, or is ours unique?

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In: Planetary Science

Answer 1

I assume you mean the asteroid belt. Meteors are things that hit Earth.

And the asteroid belt isn’t unique even in our own solar system, see the [Kuiper belt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt). It’s just less known because it’s more recently discovered, and more recently discovered because it’s farther from both the sun and Earth, so much less light makes it to those objects and much less of the light that does make it to the objects makes it back to Earth.