Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
Definición
Dibujo de un planetoide
Historia
El primer planeta menor fue Ceres, descubierto el 1 de enero de 1801 por
el italiano Giuseppe Piazzi. Ceres fue considerado originalmente un nuevo planeta, aunque
luego se le rebajó a asteroide o planeta menor, y desde 2006 está clasificado
como planeta enano.8 William Herschel, descubridor de Urano, acuñó el término
«asteroide» para los primeros objetos descubiertos en el siglo XIX, los cuales orbitan el sol
entre Marte y Júpiter, y generalmente en una órbita de baja excentricidad relativa.9 Desde
entonces se han encontrado planetas menores en todas las órbitas planetarias
desde Mercurio hasta Neptuno, y un número creciente de objetos transneptunianos (en
inglés: trans neptunian objects o TNO) más allá de la órbita de Neptuno.
Los planetas menores se clasificaban en grupos y familias basados en las características
de sus órbitas. Además de estas extensas divisiones, se acostumbraba a denominar un
grupo de asteroides a partir del primer miembro del grupo descubierto (normalmente el
mayor). Mientras que los «grupos» son asociaciones dinámicas relativamente sueltas, las
«familias» son más estables y coherentes. Las «familias» solo se reconocen dentro
del cinturón de asteroides, y fueron reconocidas por primera vez por Kiyotsugu
Hirayama en 1918, siendo llamadas «familias Hirayama» en su honor.
Populations
Hundreds of thousands of minor planets have been discovered within the Solar System and
thousands more are discovered each month. The Minor Planet Center has documented
over 213 million observations and 794,832 minor planets, of which 541,128 have orbits
known well enough to be assigned permanent official numbers.[8][9] Of these, 21,922 have
official names.[8] As of 8 November 2021, the lowest-numbered unnamed minor planet
is (4596) 1981 QB,[10] and the highest-numbered named minor planet is 594913
ꞌAylóꞌchaxnim.[11]
There are various broad minor-planet populations:
Asteroids; traditionally, most have been bodies in the inner Solar System. [6]
o Near-Earth asteroids, those whose orbits take them inside the orbit of Mars.
Further subclassification of these, based on orbital distance, is used: [12]
Apohele asteroids orbit inside of Earth's perihelion distance and thus are
contained entirely within the orbit of Earth.
Aten asteroids, those that have semi-major axes of less than Earth's and
aphelion (furthest distance from the Sun) greater than 0.983 AU.
Apollo asteroids are those asteroids with a semimajor axis greater than Earth's
while having a perihelion distance of 1.017 AU or less. Like Aten asteroids,
Apollo asteroids are Earth-crossers.
Amor asteroids are those near-Earth asteroids that approach the orbit of Earth
from beyond but do not cross it. Amor asteroids are further subdivided into four
subgroups, depending on where their semimajor axis falls between Earth's
orbit and the asteroid belt;
o Earth trojans, asteroids sharing Earth's orbit and gravitationally locked to it. As of
2011, the only one known is 2010 TK7.[13]
o Mars trojans, asteroids sharing Mars's orbit and gravitationally locked to it. As of
2007, eight such asteroids are known.[14]
o Asteroid belt, whose members follow roughly circular orbits between Mars and
Jupiter. These are the original and best-known group of asteroids.
o Jupiter trojans, asteroids sharing Jupiter's orbit and gravitationally locked to it.
Numerically they are estimated to equal the main-belt asteroids.
Distant minor planets; an umbrella term for minor planets in the outer Solar System.
o Centaurs, bodies in the outer Solar System between Jupiter and Neptune. They
have unstable orbits due to the gravitational influence of the giant planets, and
therefore must have come from elsewhere, probably outside Neptune. [15]
o Neptune trojans, bodies sharing Neptune's orbit and gravitationally locked to it.
Although only a handful are known, there is evidence that Neptune trojans are
more numerous than either the asteroids in the asteroid belt or the Jupiter trojans.
[16]