The Arjuna asteroids (also known as "Arjunas") are a
dynamical group of
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.
...
s in the
Solar System. Arjunas are
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 (NEOs) whose
orbits are very
Earth-like in character, having low
inclination
Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object.
For a satellite orbiting the Earth ...
,
orbital periods close to one year, and low
eccentricity. The group is named after
Arjuna
Arjuna (Sanskrit: अर्जुन, ), also known as Partha and Dhananjaya, is a character in several ancient Hinduism, Hindu texts, and specifically one of the major characters of the Indian epic Mahabharata. In the epic, he is the third a ...
, a central hero in Hindu epic
Mahabharata. The definition is somewhat vague and overlaps the definition of the four well-established
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= ...
,
Amor,
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 ...
and
Atira groups. They constitute a dynamically cold group of small NEOs that experience repeated trappings in the 1:1
mean-motion resonance
In celestial mechanics, orbital resonance occurs when orbiting bodies exert regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other, usually because their orbital periods are related by a ratio of small integers. Most commonly, this relationsh ...
with the Earth.
Members
Potential members of the Arjuna group with their
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= ...
(APO) or
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 ...
(ATE) group classification in parenthesis, include:
*
*
*
*
*
References
Further reading
Evidence for a near-Earth asteroid beltRabinowitz, David L.; Gehrels, Tom; Scotti, James V.; McMillan, Robert S.; Perry, Marcus L.; Wiśniewski, Wiesław Z.; Larson, Stephen M.; Howell, Ellen S.; & Mueller, Beatrice E. A. (1993), ''Nature'', Volume 363, no. 6431, pp. 704-706.
The Near-Earth Object PopulationGladman, Brett J.; Michel, Patrick; & Froeschlé, Claude (2000), ''Icarus'', Volume 146, Issue 1, pp. 176-189.
A resonant family of dynamically cold small bodies in the near-Earth asteroid beltde la Fuente Marcos, Carlos; de la Fuente Marcos, Raúl (2013), ''Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters'', Volume 434, Issue 1, pp. L1-L5.
Geometric characterization of the Arjuna orbital domainde la Fuente Marcos, Carlos; de la Fuente Marcos, Raúl (2015), ''Astronomische Nachrichten'', Volume 336, Issue 1, pp. 5–22.
Earth co-orbital asteroids
{{NE-asteroid-stub