Near Earth Asteroids Have Groups

The Near Earth Asteroid associations

Authors:

Jopek et al

Abstract:

We have made an extensive search for grouping amongst the near Earth asteroids (NEAs). We used two D- functions and rigorous cluster analysis approach. We have found several new groups (associations) among the NEAs: the objects moving on similar orbits with small minimum orbital intersection distances (MOID) with the Earth trajectory. Reliability of some of these groups is quite high.