Distant minor planet

Types of distant minor planets

A distant minor planet, or distant object, is any minor planet found beyond Jupiter in the outer Solar System that is not commonly thought of as an "asteroid". The umbrella term is used by IAU's Minor Planet Center (MPC),[1] which is responsible for the identification, designation and orbit computation of these objects.[2] As of July 2024, the MPC maintains 5710 distant objects in its data base.[3]

Most distant minor planets are trans-Neptunian objects and centaurs, while relatively few are damocloids, Neptune trojans or Uranus trojans. All distant objects have a semi-major axis (average distance from the Sun) greater than 6 AU.[3] This threshold, which is just beyond the orbit of Jupiter (5.2 AU), ensures that the vast majority of "true asteroids" – such as the near-Earth, Mars-crosser, main-belt and Jupiter trojan populations – are excluded from the distant minor planets.[3]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference MPC-Observable was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference MPC-home was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference MPC-Query was invoked but never defined (see the help page).