List of Mercury-crossing minor planets

A Mercury crosser is an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mercury. The Mercury crossers proper have aphelia outside Mercury's (0.4667 AU) and perihelia inside Mercury's (0.3075 AU), while those listed here as outer grazers have perihelia within Mercury's aphelion but not within its perihelion. All have semi-major axes larger than Mercury's, and hence there are no inner grazers.

Contents

Mercury crossers

Mercury crossers proper have aphelia outside Mercury's (0.4667 AU) and perihelia inside Mercury's (0.3075 AU). There are currently 182 Mercury crossers known.[1] Values have been rounded to three decimals.

Designation
number		 Name Perihelion
(AU)		 Semi-major
axis (AU)		 Aphelion
(AU)		 Inclination
(°)		 Eccentricity Orbit
class		 Notes
137924 2000 BD19 0.092 0.876 1.661 25.689 0.8950 Aten Has the smallest perihelion of any numbered asteroid.[1]
276033 2002 AJ129 0.117 1.371 2.625 15.494 0.9149 Apollo Has the second-smallest perihelion of any numbered asteroid.
3200 Phaethon 0.140 1.271 2.403 22.210 0.8901 Apollo Has the smallest perihelion of any named asteroid.
89958 2002 LY45 0.187 1.642 3.097 9.968 0.8864 Apollo
1566 Icarus 0.187 1.078 1.969 22.828 0.8268 Apollo First Mercury crosser to have been discovered.
5786 Talos 0.187 1.081 1.976 23.235 0.8268 Apollo
66391 1999 KW4 0.200 0.642 1.084 38.888 0.6884 Aten
66253 1999 GT3 0.216 1.334 2.452 19.514 0.8378 Apollo
85953 1999 FK21 0.219 0.739 1.258 12.602 0.7031 Aten
40267 1999 GJ4 0.257 1.339 2.421 34.533 0.8082 Apollo
66063 1998 RO1 0.277 0.991 1.704 22.675 0.7200 Aten
87684 2000 SY2 0.307 0.859 1.411 19.232 0.6428 Aten

Mercury grazers

All Mercury grazers have semi-major axes larger than Mercury's (0.3871 AU), and hence are outer grazers, i.e. have perihelia within Mercury's aphelion (0.4667 AU) but not within its perihelion (0.3075 AU). There are currently 391 Mercury grazers known.[2] Values have been rounded to three decimals.

Designation
number		 Name Perihelion
(AU)		 Semi-major axis
(AU)		 Aphelion
(AU)		 Inclination
(°)		 Eccentricity Orbit
class		 Notes
16960 1998 QS52 0.313 2.203 4.093 17.560 0.8577 Apollo
85989 1999 JD6 0.324 0.883 1.441 17.054 0.6328 Aten
68348 2001 LO7 0.339 2.152 3.964 25.478 0.8426 Apollo
86667 2000 FO10 0.348 0.859 1.370 14.286 0.5948 Aten
2212 Hephaistos 0.358 2.167 3.975 11.741 0.8348 Apollo
66400 1999 LT7 0.366 0.855 1.345 9.065 0.5725 Aten
37655 Illapa 0.366 1.478 2.590 17.994 0.7524 Apollo
88213 2001 AF2 0.386 0.954 1.522 17.812 0.5952 Aten
2008 UU1 0.401 1.608 2.814 12.057 0.7506 Apollo
66146 1998 TU3 0.406 0.787 1.168 5.413 0.4839 Aten
24443 2000 OG 0.411 2.310 4.210 25.822 0.8223 Apollo
5143 Heracles 0.418 1.834 3.250 9.033 0.7721 Apollo
33342 1998 WT24 0.418 0.718 1.019 7.343 0.4180 Aten
5660 1974 MA 0.424 1.786 3.147 38.052 0.7623 Apollo
88254 2001 FM129 0.438 1.182 1.926 1.524 0.6296 Apollo
2101 Adonis 0.442 1.875 3.307 1.333 0.7641 Apollo
3838 Epona 0.448 1.505 2.561 29.239 0.7020 Apollo
87309 2000 QP 0.455 0.847 1.240 34.743 0.4631 Aten
2340 Hathor 0.464 0.844 1.224 5.856 0.4498 Aten

See also

References

  1. ^ a b List of asteroids with q<0.3075 AU generated by the JPL Small-Body Database Search Engine Retrieved 2011-11-01
  2. ^ List of asteroids with 0.3075 AU<q<0.4667 AU generated by the JPL Small-Body Database Search Engine Retrieved 2011-11-01

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