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Approximately one-third of the asteroids in the asteroid belt are members of an asteroid family. These share similar orbital elements, such as semi-major axis, eccentricity, and orbital inclination as well as similar spectral features, which indicate a common origin in the breakup of a larger body. Graphical displays of these element pairs, for ...
[16] [17] [18] An astronomical unit, or AU, is the distance from Earth to the Sun, which is approximately 150 billion meters (93 million miles). [19] Small Solar System objects are classified by their orbits: [20] [21] Main Asteroid belt (main belt), between Mars and Jupiter, in near circular orbit, 2.2 to 3.2 AU
intermediate main-belt (2.5 AU < a < 2.82 AU) outer main-belt (a > 2.82 AU) A plot of inner solar system asteroids and planets as of 2006 May 9, in a manner that exposes the Kirkwood gaps. Similar to the position plot, planets (with trajectories) are orange, Jupiter being the outer most in this view. Various asteroid classes are colour coded ...
Earth tends to pull asteroids into partial or full orbits around it regularly before they are flung back out into space. For instance, one such space rock 2022 NX 1 was a short-lived “mini-moon ...
More than one asteroid per year may be listed if its geocentric distance [note 1] is within a tenth of the lunar distance, or 0.10 LD. For comparison, since a satellite in a geostationary orbit has an altitude of about 36,000 km (22,000 mi), then its geocentric distance is 0.11 LD (approximately three times the width of the Earth).
The Kuiper belt and Neptune may be treated as a marker of the extent of the Solar System, alternatives being the heliopause and the distance at which the Sun's gravitational influence is matched by that of other stars (estimated to be between 50 000 AU and 125 000 AU). [22]
This list includes few examples since there are about 589 asteroids in the asteroid belt with a measured radius between 20 and 49 km. [177] Many thousands of objects of this size range have yet to be discovered in the trans-Neptunian region.
Over 200 asteroids are known to be larger than 100 km, [45] and a survey in the infrared wavelengths has shown that the asteroid belt has between 700,000 and 1.7 million asteroids with a diameter of 1 km or more. [46] The absolute magnitudes of most of the known asteroids are between 11 and 19, with the median at about 16. [47]