Necessary condition for temporary asteroid capture

Abstract

Asteroid capture holds great significance in understanding the origins of asteroids, the source of life, and the exploration of planetary mineral resources. To ensure the success of a mission aimed at capturing asteroids, it is crucial to choose asteroids that can be naturally captured by Earth. This article focuses on the orbital characteristics of temporarily captured asteroids. Through a statistical simulation of asteroid motion and an analytical derivation of the Jacobian integral, the necessary conditions for the temporary capture of asteroids by Earth are calculated. The analysis results show an approximately linear relationship between the orbit elements of temporarily captured asteroids. This condition is used to screen the currently observed near-Earth asteroids and has identified asteroids such as 2006 RH120 and 2020 CD3, which have been temporarily captured by Earth. These findings provide important suggestions for future asteroid capture missions and target selection.

Keywords

• temporary capture asteroid
• near-earth asteroids
• orbital elements
• numerical methods
• necessary condition