UNDERSTANDING THE DISTRBUTION OF NEAR-EARTH ASTEROIDS

We have deduced the orbital distributions of the near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) by (i) numerically integrating NEAs from their source regions to their observed orbits, (ii) estimating the observational biases and size distribution associated with asteroids on those orbits, and (iii) creating a model population that can be fit to the known NEAs. We predict there are ~900 H < 18 (i.e. km-sized) NEAs, 29%, 65%, and 6% which reside on Amor, Apollo, and Aten orbits, respectively. These results suggest that roughly 40% of the km-sized NEAs have been found. The remainder, on highly eccentric and inclined orbits, are more difficult to detect.