What effect does Jupiter have on asteroids in the asteroid belt?
A) Jupiter has no effect whatsoever on such small objects because they are a long way away from Jupiter, and Jupiter''s gravitational influence varies as the inverse square of distance, by Newton''s law.
B) Jupiter perturbs only the orbits of asteroids whose orbital periods are a simple fraction (e.g., 1/2, 1/3, 2/3, 2/7) of its orbital period.
C) Jupiter disturbs only the orbits of asteroids whose orbital distances (or semimajor axes) are a simple fraction (e.g., 1/2, 1/3, 2/3, 2/7) of the radius of Jupiter''s orbit.
D) Jupiter disturbs the orbits of all the asteroids in the belt, slowing them down and causing them to spiral slowly in toward the Sun.
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