First predicted by Zappa
Ceres of tiny lites.
Dwarf planet Ceres has ten bright spots, not just the two that the Dawn spacecraft saw as it approached the worldlet in February. The two bright patches sparked all manner of speculation about their origins. Some suggested they could be volcanoes or a frozen lake reflecting the Sun. As news, and new images, of the bright spots …
Go somewhere with a *really* good sound system. Hook up a computer, turn up the volume, close your eyes and hit play on this:
The orbital resonances between Mars and Jupiter pretty much preclude a planet of any significant size having in the region of the asteroid belt.
It becomes even more unlikely when you consider the energies required coupled with the low combined mass of the Asteroid belt - somewhat less than 5% of the Moon's.
The radically different compositions of the various Asteroid Families are also difficult (though not impossible) to explain if they were to have originated from the same planet.
One theory is that there were rocky planets in the inner solar system that got eaten or knocked around when Jupiter started migrating inward. When Saturn pulled Jupiter outward, what was left coalesced into the inner planets we have now. There is a much better description here, for example, but it seems to be a coherent explanation, at least in part, of how our solar system came to be as it is in terms of composition and placement of the various planets.
"The radically different compositions of the various Asteroid Families are also difficult (though not impossible) to explain if they were to have originated from the same planet."
Not really, of Jovian migration occurred, a modest planet could have begun forming, differentiation begun, leaving metals migrating down, only to be sundered by the distant passing of Jupiter.
But, that's extremely dicey, I'll admit. It ignores the wide distribution of asteroids, it ignores needing passing within the Roche limit of Jupiter and well, physics in general, considering the previous issues.
What isn't explained is why we have chondrite or metallic and very little in the middle mixture. *Something* caused metallics to form in significant quantities in preference to a more random mixture.
Most Solar System formation theories posit that the planets have 'moved' since their formation. In this case, Ceres and Vesta are surprisingly different given the expected homogenous origins of the Asteroid belt.
Dawn measured Vesta at 3.5 gm/cc3 (9% of the Asteroid belt mass). Ceres is about 2.1 gm/cc3 (31% of the Asteroid belt mass). Pallas is 2.8 gm/cc3 (7%).
That is 47% of the Asteroid belt mass with each chunk have very substantial differences. If you are looking for breakup of a single item, these disparities argue against it.