Residuals for the observations of the 62 selected minor planets

This paper reports results of the improvement of orbital elements of the 62 minor planets included in the Hipparcos mission. The astrometric observations supplied by the Minor Planet Center and the meridian circles at La Palma and Bordeaux observatories were used by the author. The accuracy reached (RMS O-C) for each minor planet and for La Palma and Bordeaux observations are presented.     

Revised orbital elements of minor planets

Revised orbital elements of minor planets 702 Alauda, 946 Poesia, 2395 Aho, 3051 Nantong, 3086 Kalbaugh and 4218 Demottoni are given.     

Palomar-Leiden minor planets: Proper elements,frequency distributions,belt boundaries,and family memberships

Proper elements have been calculated for 1227 higher accuracy orbits from the Palomar-Leiden Survey of faint minor planets. Tabulations are given for the special orbits: Earth and deep Mars crossers, Trojans, Hildas, and one 2:1 librator. The frequency distributions of the proper semimajor axis, eccentricity, sine inclination, longitudes of perihelion and node plus their rates, and the closest distances of approach to Mars and Jupiter are displayed as histograms and discussed. The distribution of the closest approach distance to Mars drops off sharply near zero while that for Jupiter vanishes near 1.1 AU. Mars and Jupiter have apparently caused these boundaries and the asteroid belt must have been larger early in the history of the solar system. 3.5% of the sample can impact Mars. Most of these potential impactors are shallow crossers which require occasional fortuitous alignments of the secular terms to intersect Mars' orbit so that long lifetimes result and moderate populations remain. As these fortuitous alignments occur with near simultaneity for many, but not all, asteroids the shallow crossers in the observed size range will episodically bombard Mars. Proper elements have been used to recognize families and 49% of the sample of minor planets fall into these families. The proper elements and family assignments are tabulated.     

Group method of calculating the perturbations of minor planets

Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy - An expansion of the disturbing functionR is suggested for the special case when the orbits of a group of minor planets have approximately equal major...     

A determination of the masses of the five outer planets

Planetary masses are determined from an extensive analysis of observations of the five outer planets and of seven selected minor planets.     

Photographic positions of Minor Planets

Photographic precise positions of minor planets, obtained with the G.P.O. astrograph at ESO (La Silla - Chile) and with the ZEN astrograph at Merate, are given     

Explicit Semianalytical Theory of Asteroid Motion

A new semianalytical theory of asteroid motion is presented. The theory is developed on the basis of Kaula's expansion of the disturbing function including terms up to the second order with respect to the masses of disturbing bodies. The theory is constructed in explicit form that gives the possibility to study separately the influence of different perturbations in the dynamics of minor planets. The mean-motion resonances with major planets as well as mixed three-body resonances can also be taken into account. For the non-resonant case the formulas obtained can be used for deriving the second transformation to calculate the proper elements of an asteroid orbit in closed form with respect to inclinations and eccentricities. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Photographic positions of Minor Planets

Photographic precise positions of 16 minor planets obtained with the G.P.O. astrograph at E.S.O. (La Silla - Chile) in January 1988 are given.     

Report of the IAU/IAG Working Group on cartographic coordinates and rotational elements: 2006

Every three years the IAU/IAG Working Group on Cartographic Coordinates and Rotational Elements revises tables giving the directions of the poles of rotation and the prime meridians of the planets, satellites, minor planets, and comets. This report introduces improved values for the pole and rotation rate of Pluto, Charon, and Phoebe, the pole of Jupiter, the sizes and shapes of Saturn satellites and Charon, and the poles, rotation rates, and sizes of some minor planets and comets. A high precision realization for the pole and rotation rate of the Moon is provided. The expression for the Sun’s rotation has been changed to be consistent with the planets and to account for light travel time     

Current state and development of the minor planets research in Nikolaev Astronomical Observatory

Regular positional observations of minor planets in Nikolaev Astronomical Observatory have been begun with installation of photographic Zone Astrograph in 1961. The observations of 19 selected minor planets up to 12 magnitude were obtained for 36 years. Accuracy of the photographic positions of minor planets is rather high, 0.15^′′-0.19^′′. These positions were used for improvement of the system of fundamental catalogue and determination of its orientation to the dynamical reference frame. CCD observations of asteroids have been begun at the Zone Astrograph in 2000. There was obtained about the same accuracy, as in photographic observations. During 2004-2006 NAO participated in international collaboration with TUBITAK National Observatory (Turkey) and Kazan State University (Russia) in positional and photometric observations of small Solar system bodies. About four thousands of CCD images for 58 asteroids of 11-18 mag were obtained with internal and external errors of 30-80 mas of a single determination. Some of these observations, as well as the observations of the Minor Planet Center, are being used for the current asteroid mass determinations in Nikolaev observatory. Available results allow us to consider the Russian-Turkish telescope RTT150 as a good candidate for ground-based astrometry support of the future space mission GAIA, moreover in the period before GAIA.     

International program of observations of selected minor planets: first results

International programs of observations of selected minor planets have lasted about 50 years and the last one comes to the end in 2000. The main aim of these observational programs consists in obtaining the orientation of the stellar reference frame with respect to the dynamical one using observations of the bright minor planets. The observations are also useful for the orbital improvements of the asteroids themselves. They are available from the author via e-mail at the address .During the above mentioned period more than 23 000 observations of minor planets, referred to different reference star catalogues, have been obtained. The reduction procedure of observations to the PPM star catalogue is described. The orientation parameters are given and discussed.     

On the velocity distribution of the minor planets and stars

The velocity distribution of the minor planets is studied in comparison with that of the stars in the neighbourhood of the Sun. The phase configuration at a given instant has been obtained and the distribution has been studied for different ecliptic sectors. The velocity distribution of the minor planets is similar to that of the stars and differs little form the trivariate normal distribution. The vertex presents a deviation from the direction of the Sun which is positive or negative for different sectors. This vertex deviation is a consequence of the orbit orientations. The relaxation time, deduced from the encounters between the minor planets, is of the order of 10¹⁴ to 10¹⁶ yr.     

Recovery of the long lost minor planet (1179) Mally (Astronomisches Rechen-Institut — Mitteilungen Serie B)

The orbit of minor planet (1179) Mally which was supposed to be almost hopelessly lost since its discovery in 1931 is rediscussed. Based on a remeasurement of the original Heidelberg plates, two alternative search ephemerides for the perihelion opposition 1986 have been computed. The object was found on the line of variation very near to the predicted position. The recovery was confirmed by the discovery of additional images on UK Schmidt and ESO Schmidt plates as well as on Palomar Sky Survey exposures. There are no further identities of this faint planet among more than 100,000 reported observations of minor planets in this century. Improved elements based on seven apparitions 1931–1986 are given.     

The large-scale structure of the asteroid belt

We examine the distributions of 2888 numbered minor planets over orbital inclination, eccentricity, and semimajor axis, and define 19 zones which we believe adequately to isolate the selection biases in survey programs of the physical properties of minor planets. Six numbered asteroids have exceptional orbits and fall into no zone. We also call attention to rather sharp upper limits, which become increasingly stringent at larger heliocentric distances, on orbital inclinations and eccentricity.     

Giant planet migration through the action of disk torques and planet-planet scattering

This paper presents a parametric study of giant planet migration through the combined action of disk torques and planet-planet scattering. The torques exerted on planets during Type II migration in circumstellar disks readily decrease the semi-major axes a, whereas scattering between planets increases the orbital eccentricities ?. This paper presents a parametric exploration of the possible parameter space for this migration scenario using two (initial) planetary mass distributions and a range of values for the time scale of eccentricity damping (due to the disk). For each class of systems, many realizations of the simulations are performed in order to determine the distributions of the resulting orbital elements of the surviving planets; this paper presents the results of ∼8500 numerical experiments. Our goal is to study the physics of this particular migration mechanism and to test it against observations of extrasolar planets. The action of disk torques and planet-planet scattering results in a distribution of final orbital elements that fills the a-? plane, in rough agreement with the orbital elements of observed extrasolar planets. In addition to specifying the orbital elements, we characterize this migration mechanism by finding the percentages of ejected and accreted planets, the number of collisions, the dependence of outcomes on planetary masses, the time spent in 2:1 and 3:1 resonances, and the effects of the planetary IMF. We also determine the distribution of inclination angles of surviving planets and the distribution of ejection speeds for exiled planets.     

The use of radar observations of Near-Earth Asteroids in the determination of the dynamical equinox

Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) are Solar system special class objects attracting the attention of astronomical community especially during several of the last decades. To some extent the NEAs have an advantage over the minor planets of the main belt: due to close and regular approaches to the Earth the radar observations of NEAs can be obtained for the greater number of objects than for those of the main belt of the minor planets. In this paper the use of all available radar observations together with optical ones resulting in the combined data analysis solution is discussed for different problems such as the asteroid orbits and catalog orientation parameters determination. In particular the problem of the motion of the dynamical equinox in the Hipparcos reference system is considered. About 13000 radar and optical observations of 24 NEAs and main belt minor planets have been used to obtain the precise asteroid orbits, FK5 catalogue orientation parameters and the motion of the dynamical equinox from 1750 till 2000 in the Hipparcos system.     

Special Groups of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids

Solar System Research - The groups of asteroids which can have approaches to two or more planets have been determined. It is shown that in the phase space of the orbital elements there are regions...     

Planets and minor planets CCD observations with the CMT and the CMASF

CCD observations of planets and minor planets obtained while surveying the northern and southern hemispheres using the CMT on La Palma (Spain) and the CMASF at El Leoncito (Argentina) are presented.Also presented is the possibility of observing some Solar System bodies with these instruments in the future.     

Positionen Kleiner Planeten

The table contains topocentric positions of several minor planets. The coordinates are given for the epoch 1950.0.     

Equinox and equator determinations from hypothetical minor planet observations

Hypothetical observations of minor planets 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 15 were computed for a ten year observing period commencing 2 Jan. 1980. The mean errors of the equinox and equator corrections were determined versus: the distribution of clear nights during the year; the length of the observing program; the number of minor planets included in the program; and the elongation from the Sun. It is concluded that the equinox and equator are best determined by: choice of a site with a minimum of 60% clear nights well distributed throughout the year; an observing program that lasts a minimum of four years, but that little is gained by extension of the program to more than ten years; inclusion of a minimum of four or five minor planets in the program, but that more than nine is not necessary; that the best four minor planets to use are numbers 1, 4, 7, and 15; and that observations should be made as far from opposition as possible, but that it is not essential to observe beyond quadrature.Presented at the Symposium Star Catalogues, Positional Astronomy and Celestial Mechanics, held in honor of Paul Herget at the U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, November 30, 1978.