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The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after
1862 Apollo 1862 Apollo is a stony asteroid, approximately 1.5 kilometers in diameter, classified as a near-Earth object (NEO). It was discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth at Heidelberg Observatory on 24 April 1932, but lost and not recovered unt ...
, discovered by German astronomer
Karl Reinmuth Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth (4 April 1892 in Heidelberg – 6 May 1979 in Heidelberg) was a German astronomer and a prolific discoverer of 395 minor planets. Scientific career From 1912 to 1957, Reinmuth was working as an astronomer at the Hei ...
in the 1930s. They are
Earth-crossing asteroid An Earth-crosser is a near-Earth asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Earth as observed from the ecliptic pole of Earth's orbit. The known numbered Earth-crossers are listed here. Those Earth-crossers whose semi-major axes are smaller than Ea ...
s that have an orbital semi-major axis greater than that of the Earth (a > 1 AU) but perihelion distances less than the Earth's
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 ellip ...
distance (q < 1.017 AU). , the number of known Apollo asteroids is 10,485, making the class the largest group of
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) ...
s (''cf''. the
Aten Aten also Aton, Atonu, or Itn ( egy, jtn, ''reconstructed'' ) was the focus of Atenism, the religious system established in ancient Egypt by the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten. The Aten was the disc of the sun and originally an aspect ...
, Amor and Atira asteroids), of which 1,409 are numbered (asteroids are not numbered until they have been observed at two or more
oppositions ''Oppositions'' was an architectural journal produced by the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies from 1973 to 1984. Many of its articles contributed to advancing architectural theory and many of its contributors became distinguished practi ...
), and 1,648 are identified as
potentially hazardous asteroids 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 ...
. The closer their semi-major axis is to Earth's, the less eccentricity is needed for the orbits to cross. The
Chelyabinsk meteor The Chelyabinsk meteor was a superbolide that entered Earth's atmosphere over the southern Ural region in Russia on 15 February 2013 at about 09:20 YEKT (03:20 UTC). It was caused by an approximately near-Earth asteroid that entered the a ...
, that exploded over the city of
Chelyabinsk Chelyabinsk ( rus, Челя́бинск, p=tɕɪˈlʲæbʲɪnsk, a=Ru-Chelyabinsk.ogg; ba, Силәбе, ''Siläbe'') is the administrative center and largest city of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the seventh-largest city in Russia, with a ...
in the southern Urals region of Russia on February 15, 2013, injuring an estimated 1,500 people with flying glass from broken windows, was an Apollo-class
asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...
.


List

The largest known Apollo asteroid is
1866 Sisyphus 1866 Sisyphus is a binary stony asteroid, near-Earth object and the largest member of the Apollo group, approximately 7 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 5 December 1972, by Swiss astronomer Paul Wild at Zimmerwald Observatory near ...
, with a diameter of about 8.5 km. Examples of known Apollo asteroids include:


See also

* Alinda group *
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 (i.e., the objects do not cross Earth's orbi ...
* Apollo asteroids (category) * Apollo asteroid records *
Aten asteroid The Aten asteroids are a dynamical group of asteroids whose orbits bring them into proximity with Earth. By definition, Atens are Earth-crossing asteroids . The group is named after 2062 Aten, the first of its kind, discovered on 7 Januar ...
*
List of minor planets The following is a list of numbered minor planets in ascending numerical order. With the exception of comets, minor planets are all small bodies in the Solar System, including asteroids, distant objects and dwarf planets. The catalog consists ...
* 2020 PP1


References


External links


List of Apollo minor planets
{{Small Solar System bodies
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= ...