With Explorer Software you get the command Navigation -> Scan Asteroids. If you activate that, you get two sub-commands to choose from: Scan Asteroids and Survey Debris (or similar). After choosing the latter and a sector, the ship just docks at the nearest station...
What is the Survey Debris command for?
EDIT: The answer...
argon_emperor wrote:That option allows the ship to scan all the debris rocks (i.e. can't have a mine built on them) for their resources, and at the end, sends a message to the player listing the quantities of the various resources in the sector.