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[14.08] Population of NEAs in Coorbital Motion with Venus

M. H. M. Morais (GAUC - University of Coimbra, Portugal), A. Morbidelli (Nice Observatory, France)

In a previous article (Morais and Morbidelli, Icarus 160, 1-9, 2002) we estimated the population of Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) that are in coorbital motion with the Earth. This work was based on simulations that had as starting point an existent NEA model (Bottke et al, Icarus 156, 399-433, 2002).

Here, we apply the same methodology to estimate the population of NEAs that are in coorbital motion with Venus. We obtain the size and orbital distribution of these objects. We find that there should be 0.14 ±0.03 objects with absolute magnitude H<18 and 3.5 ±0.7 objects with absolute magnitude H<22. We also map the distribution in the sky of these Venus coorbital NEAs as an aid for future observational searches.

This work was funded by grant SFRH/BPD/19155/2004 from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portugal).

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #3
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.