Amor asteroid


The Amor asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after the archetype object 1221 Amor. The orbital perihelion of these objects is close to, but greater than, the orbital aphelion of Earth, with most Amors crossing the orbit of Mars. The Amor asteroid 433 Eros was the first asteroid to be orbited and landed upon by a robotic space probe.

Definition

The orbital characteristics that define an asteroid as being in the Amor group are:
As of 2019 there are 7427 known Amor asteroids. 1153 are numbered, and 75 of them are named.

Outer Earth-grazer asteroids

An outer Earth-grazer asteroid is an asteroid that is normally beyond Earth's orbit, but which can get closer to the Sun than Earth's aphelion, and not closer than Earth's perihelion ; i.e., the asteroid's perihelion is between Earth's perihelion and aphelion. Outer Earth-grazer asteroids are split between Amor and Apollo asteroids. Using the definition of Amor asteroids above, "Earth grazers" that never get closer to the Sun than Earth does are Amors, whereas those that do are Apollos.

Potentially hazardous asteroids

To be considered a potentially hazardous asteroid, an object's orbit must, at some point, come within 0.05 AU of Earth's orbit, and the object itself must be sufficiently large/massive to cause significant regional damage if it impacted Earth. Most PHAs are either Aten asteroids or Apollo asteroids, but approximately one tenth of PHAs are Amor asteroids. A potentially hazardous Amor asteroid therefore must have a perihelion of less than 1.05 AU. Approximately 20% of the known Amors meet this requirement, and about a fifth of those are PHAs. The fifty known Amor PHAs include the named objects 2061 Anza, 3122 Florence, 3908 Nyx, and 3671 Dionysus.

Lists

Prominent Amor asteroids

Named Amor asteroids

This is a non-static list of named Amor asteroids.
DesignationProv. designation
433 Eros1898 DQ
719 Albert1911 MT
887 Alinda1918 DB
1036 Ganymed1924 TD
1221 Amor1932 EA1
1580 Betulia1950 KA
1627 Ivar1929 SH
1915 Quetzalcoatl1953 EA
1916 Boreas1953 RA
1917 Cuyo1968 AA
1943 Anteros1973 EC
1980 Tezcatlipoca1950 LA
2059 Baboquivari1963 UA
2061 Anza1960 UA
2202 Pele1972 RA
2368 Beltrovata1977 RA
2608 Seneca1978 DA
3102 Krok1981 QA
3122 Florence1981 ET3
3199 Nefertiti1982 RA
3271 Ul1982 RB
3288 Seleucus1982 DV
3352 McAuliffe1981 CW
3551 Verenia1983 RD
3552 Don Quixote1983 SA

DesignationProv. designation
6569 Ondaatje1993 MO
7088 Ishtar1992 AA
7336 Saunders1989 RS1
7358 Oze1995 YA3
7480 Norwan1994 PC
8013 Gordonmoore1990 KA
8034 Akka1992 LR
8709 Kadlu1994 JF1
9172 Abhramu1989 OB
9950 ESA1990 VB
11284 Belenus1990 BA
13553 Masaakikoyama1992 JE
15745 Yuliya1991 PM5
15817 Lucianotesi1994 QC
16064 Davidharvey1999 RH27
16912 Rhiannon1998 EP8
18106 Blume2000 NX3
20460 Robwhiteley1999 LO28
21088 Chelyabinsk1992 BL2
52387 Huitzilopochtli1993 OM7
65803 Didymos1996 GT
96189 Pygmalion1991 NT3
154991 Vinciguerra2005 BX26
162011 Konnohmaru1994 AB1
164215 Doloreshill2004 MF6