Small Solar System Bodies
Small Solar System bodies are objects placed in heliocentric orbits, that are not a planet, satellite or dwarf planet. Like planets, nearly all small Solar System bodies move around the Sun in elliptical orbits. The semi-major axis of these ellipses gives us an idea of the size of the body's orbit, and can be compared with the semimajor axes of planetary orbits. The figure represents the population of known small bodies, depending on the semimajor axis of its orbit, expressed in astronomical units (AU).
It can be seen that most small bodies are located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, in what is called the main belt. In addition to the small bodies shown in the figure, we know about a relatively small number of objects that lie beyond Jupiter's orbit. Some have an orbit that goes beyond the outermost planet -Neptune- and they are called Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNO).
Small body statistics
Number of bodies in database: 579253.
Potentially hazardous objects: 753.
Numbered small bodies: 312935.
Orbital type counts:
| Type | Count |
|---|---|
| Aten | 696 |
| Apollo | 3965 |
| Amor | 3210 |
| Hilda | 3706 |
| Jupiter Trojan | 5270 |
| Centaur | 240 |
| Plutino | 246 |
| Other resonant TNO | 34 |
| Cubewano | 895 |
| Scattered disk objects | 180 |
Small body search
Look for small bodies by name, and compute ephemerides. To search for numbered small bodies, put the number inside parentheses.