List of Apollo asteroids

The Apollo asteroid group (shown in green). The Sun is in the center, with the planets Mercury (black), Venus (yellow), Earth (blue) and Mars (red).

The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after 1862 Apollo, the first asteroid of this group which was discovered by Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth. They are Earth-crosser asteroids that have orbital semi-major axis greater than that of the Earth (> 1 AU) but perihelion distances less than the Earth's aphelion distance (q < 1.017 AU).^[1] Some can get very close to the Earth, making them a potential threat to our planet (the closer their semi-major axis is to Earth's, the less eccentricity is needed for the orbits to cross). The February 15, 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor that exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk in the southern Urals region of Russia, injuring an estimated one thousand people with flying glass from broken windows, was an Apollo class asteroid.^[2][3]

The largest known Apollo asteroid is 1866 Sisyphus, with a diameter of about 8.5 km.

As of February 2014, there are 5766 known Apollo-class asteroids of which 832 are numbered. Near-Earth asteroids are not numbered until they have been observed at two or more oppositions.

Examples of known Apollo asteroids include:

See also

• Apollo asteroids (category)
• Apollo asteroid records

References

• NASA (21 January 2014), Near-Earth Object Groups, retrieved 21 January 2014.

External links

• List of Apollo minor planets