List of Mercury-crossing Minor Planets - Mercury Grazers

Mercury Grazers

All Mercury grazers have semi-major axes larger than Mercury's (0.3871 AU), and hence are outer grazers, i.e. have perihelia within Mercury's aphelion (0.4667 AU) but not within its perihelion (0.3075 AU). As of May 2012, there are 409 Mercury grazers known. Values have been rounded to three decimals.

Designation
number
Name Perihelion
(AU)
Semi-major axis
(AU)
Aphelion
(AU)
Inclination
(°)
Eccentricity Orbit
class
Notes
16960 1998 QS52 0.313 2.203 4.093 17.560 0.8577 Apollo
85989 1999 JD6 0.324 0.883 1.441 17.054 0.6328 Aten
68348 2001 LO7 0.339 2.152 3.964 25.478 0.8426 Apollo
86667 2000 FO10 0.348 0.859 1.370 14.286 0.5948 Aten
2212 Hephaistos 0.358 2.167 3.975 11.741 0.8348 Apollo
66400 1999 LT7 0.366 0.855 1.345 9.065 0.5725 Aten
37655 Illapa 0.366 1.478 2.590 17.994 0.7524 Apollo
88213 2001 AF2 0.386 0.954 1.522 17.812 0.5952 Aten
2008 UU1 0.401 1.608 2.814 12.057 0.7506 Apollo
66146 1998 TU3 0.406 0.787 1.168 5.413 0.4839 Aten
24443 2000 OG 0.411 2.310 4.210 25.822 0.8223 Apollo
5143 Heracles 0.418 1.834 3.250 9.033 0.7721 Apollo
33342 1998 WT24 0.418 0.718 1.019 7.343 0.4180 Aten
5660 1974 MA 0.424 1.786 3.147 38.052 0.7623 Apollo
88254 2001 FM129 0.438 1.182 1.926 1.524 0.6296 Apollo
2101 Adonis 0.442 1.875 3.307 1.333 0.7641 Apollo
3838 Epona 0.448 1.505 2.561 29.239 0.7020 Apollo
87309 2000 QP 0.455 0.847 1.240 34.743 0.4631 Aten
2340 Hathor 0.464 0.844 1.224 5.856 0.4498 Aten

Read more about this topic:  List Of Mercury-crossing Minor Planets

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