The Amor asteroids are a group of

near-Earth asteroid A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU) ...

s named after the archetype object 1221 Amor . The orbital

perihelion An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any e ...

of these objects is close to, but greater than, the orbital

aphelion An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any e ...

of Earth (i.e., the objects do not cross Earth's orbit), with most Amors crossing the orbit of Mars. The Amor asteroid

433 Eros Eros ( minor planet designation: (433) Eros), provisional designation is a stony asteroid of the Amor group and the first discovered and second-largest near-Earth object with an elongated shape and a mean diameter of approximately . V ...

was the first asteroid to be

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such a ...

ed and landed upon by a robotic

space probe A space probe is an artificial satellite that travels through space to collect scientific data. A space probe may orbit Earth; approach the Moon; travel through interplanetary space; flyby, orbit, or land or fly on other planetary bodies; or ...

(

NEAR Shoemaker ''Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous – Shoemaker'' (''NEAR Shoemaker''), renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker, was a robotic space probe designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Labora ...

Definition

The orbital characteristics that define an asteroid as being in the Amor group are: * The orbital period is greater than one year; i.e., the orbital semi-major axis (''a'') is greater than 1.0 AU (''a'' > 1.0 AU); * The orbit does not cross that of Earth; i.e., the orbital perihelion (''q'') is greater than Earth's orbital aphelion (''q'' > 1.017 AU); * The object is a

near-Earth object A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU) ...

(NEO); i.e., ''q'' < 1.3 AU.

Populations

As of 2019 there are 7427 known Amor asteroids.List of Amor asteroids generated by the JPL Small-Body Database Search Engine
Retrieved 2019-04-03 1153 are numbered, and 75 of them are named.List of numbered Amor asteroids generated by the JPL Small-Body Database Search Engine
Retrieved 2018-11-15

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

(1.0167 AU), and not closer than Earth's perihelion (0.9833 AU); i.e., the asteroid's perihelion is between Earth's perihelion and aphelion. Outer Earth-grazer asteroids are split between Amor and

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

asteroids. Using the definition of Amor asteroids above, "Earth grazers" that never get closer to the Sun than Earth does (at any point along its orbit) are Amors, whereas those that do are Apollos.

Potentially hazardous asteroids

To be considered a

potentially hazardous asteroid A potentially hazardous object (PHO) is a near-Earth object – either an asteroid or a comet – with an orbit that can make close approaches to the Earth and is large enough to cause significant regional damage in the event of impact. They are ...

(PHA), 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 asteroid The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after 1862 Apollo, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s. They are Earth-crossing asteroids that have an orbital semi-major axis greater than that of the Earth ...

s (and thus have orbits that cross the orbit of Earth), 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 3122 Florence is a stony trinary asteroid of the Amor group. It is classified as a near-Earth object and potentially hazardous asteroid. It measures approximately 5 kilometers in diameter. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.0–2.5 AU ...

, 3908 Nyx, and 3671 Dionysus.

Lists

Prominent Amor asteroids

Named Amor asteroids

This is a non-static list of named Amor asteroids.

References

External links

List of Amor minor planets
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Amor Amor ("love" in Latin, Spanish and Portuguese) may refer to: Music Albums * ''Amor'' (Julio Iglesias album), 1982 * ''Amor'' (Andrea Bocelli album), 2006 Songs * "Amor" (Los Auténticos Decadentes song), 2000 * "Amor" (Cristian Castro song), 199 ...