Retrograde and Highly Inclined
Minor planets with orbital inclinations greater than 90° and less than 270° orbit in a retrograde direction. As of February 2011, of the 540,000+ minor planets known, there are only 36 retrograde minor planets, only two of which are numbered, and none of them are confined to the asteroid belt. In comparison, there are over 1850 comets with retrograde orbits. This makes retrograde minor planets the rarest group of all. High-inclination asteroids are either Mars-crossers (possibly in the process of being ejected from the Solar System) or damocloids.
| Retrograde | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Inclination | Discovery date | Comment |
| 20461 Dioretsa | 160.400° | June 8, 1999 | This outer-planet crosser is a damocloid and centaur; 2000 HE46 may have split off from Dioretsa. |
| 1999 LE31 | 151.867° | June 12, 1999 | A damocloid, Jupiter- and Saturn-crossing minor planet. |
| 2000 DG8 | 129.381° | February 25, 2000 | A damocloid and SDO. Crosses all the outer planets except Neptune. Came within 0.03 AU of Ceres in 1930. |
| 2000 HE46 | 158.459° | April 29, 2000 | This outer-planet crosser is a damocloid and centaur. May be a fragment of 20461 Dioretsa. |
| 2002 CE10 | 145.453° | February 6, 2002 | Later reclassified as comet P/2002 CE10 (LINEAR 34). |
| (65407) 2002 RP120 | 119.112° | September 4, 2002 | This outer-planet crosser is a damocloid and SDO. |
| 2004 NN8 | 165.377° | July 13, 2004 | Came within 0.80 AU of Saturn on 2007-Jun-05 |
| 2005 NP82 | 130.595° | July 6, 2005 | |
| 2005 SB223 | 091.419° | September 30, 2005 | Has a well-determined orbit with a data arc of 244 days (Uncertainty Parameter=1) |
| 2005 VD | 172.911° | November 1, 2005 | Centaur with a Halley-like orbit. It has the lowest eccentricity and highest inclination of the retrograde orbits |
| 2005 VX3 | 112.471° | November 1, 2005 | Semi-major axis of 837AU, but has a somewhat short 81 day observation arc for such a large orbit |
| 2006 BZ8 | 165.272° | January 23, 2006 | |
| 2006 EX52 | 150.260° | March 5, 2006 | q=2.58 AU and period=274 yr |
| 2006 GZ2 | 168.331° | April 7, 2006 | Later reclassified as comet C/2006 GZ2 (Spacewatch). |
| 2006 LM1 | 172.137° | June 3, 2006 | Has a data arc of only 2 days (Uncertainty Parameter=E), but has a very high inclination |
| 2006 RG1 | 133.315° | September 1, 2006 | Has an orbit with a data arc of 25 days (Uncertainty Parameter=4) |
| 2007 VA85 | 131.768° | November 4, 2007 | Near-Earth object that makes approaches to Jupiter and Earth. |
| 2008 KV42 | 103.503° | May 31, 2008 | Damocloid and trans-Neptunian centaur with perihelion at 20 AU |
| 2009 HC82 | 154.649° | April 29, 2009 | NEO that has the highest relative velocity to the Earth (282,900 km/hr) of objects that come within 0.5 AU of the Earth. |
| 2010 BK118 | 143.926° | January 30, 2010 | Semi-major axis of 408 AU with perihelion at 6.1 AU in April 2012 (1 year data arc) |
| 2010 NV1 | 140.777° | July 2, 2010 | Perihelion at 9.4 AU, only 2008 KV42 has perihelion further out (154 day data arc) |
| High-inclination | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Inclination | Discovery date | Comment |
| 1373 Cincinnati | 38.949° | August 8, 1935 | First main-belt asteroid discovered to have an inclination greater than 2 Pallas. |
| (88043) 2000 UE110 | 51.998° | October 29, 2000 | First main-belt asteroid discovered and numbered to have an inclination greater than 50°. |
| (5496) 1973 NA | 67.999° | July 4, 1973 | A Mars-crosser and near-Earth object. |
| 2001 AU43 | 72.132° | January 4, 2001 | A Mars-crosser and near-Earth object. |
| (127546) 2002 XU93 | 77.904° | December 4, 2002 | A damocloid and SDO. It is almost a Uranus outer-grazer. |
| 2003 EH1 | 70.790° | March 6, 2003 | A Mars-crosser, near-Earth object and Jupiter inner-grazer. |
| 2004 LG | 70.725° | June 9, 2004 | A Mercury- through Mars-crosser and near-Earth object. |
| 2010 OA101 | 84.426° | July 17, 2010 | Outer main-belt asteroid with a semi-major axis of 4.5 AU and an inclination of 84°. (54 day data arc) |
Read more about this topic: List Of Notable Asteroids
Famous quotes containing the words highly and/or inclined:
“The bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self.... And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
“Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half-witted with the half- witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)