Richard Mayfield, age 11, of Shreveport, la.; for his question

How are the asteroids formed?

The word asteroid means star like, but an asteroid is a lump of solid minerals, and a star is a nuclear furnace of seething gases. True, most asteroids are up in the starry sky, but rarely do we see one. Some asteroids are t0 be found on the earth. These grounded asteroids may reveal how the teeming belt of asteroids was formed.

Lately, science has revealed some astounding information about meteorites. These are grounded space travelers which, we are told., form part of the drifting debris in the space ways of the solar system. Most experts agree that many of these meteorites were once asteroids.

Iron and nickel meteorites are made from heavy metals like those in the earth's core. Stony meteorites are made from lighter minerals like those of the earth's crust. In the formation of a planet, the heavy elements tend to sink to the center, but this process takes time. The different meteorites suggest that they might be fragments of some larger body which was once a planet.

The asteroids which give us many of our meteorites, then, might be the scattered remains of a planet which once orbited between mars and Jupiter. But we have no proof of this theory. Nor can we explain how a planet could be smashed into fragments.

The meteorites now being studied contain large amounts of carbon compounds. They are called carbonaceous chondrites, and lately we have learned some amazing facts about them. Some of these facts might lead us to fanciful ideas that cannot be proved.

Some of the minerals in these chondrites are like the hydrocarbon chemicals in butter and other organic substances which come from living things. But we cannot argue that there were cows on the planet which broke apart to form the asteroids. Far from it. We may suspect, but we cannot prove, that some meteorites are grounded asteroids or that the asteroids are fragments of a planet. True, the newly found compounds are like those which form living organisms. But this does not help us prove how the asteroids were formed. As of now, we just do not know.

The carbonaceous chondrites may or may not prove that life exists outside our world. Their compounds are like the basic chemicals from which living matter is formed, but such chemicals can exist as non living substances. What's more, the rather soft chondrites are porous, and chemicals may have seeped into them from the soil. The life forming compounds may prove to be from the earth and not from outer space.