Chapter 9 Understanding the Near-Earth Object Population: the 2004 Perspective

Over the last several decades, evidence has steadily mounted that asteroids and com-ets have impacted the Earth over solar system history. This population is commonly referred to as “near-Earth objects ” (NEOs). By convention, NEOs have perihelion dis-tances q ≤ 1.3AU and aphelion distances Q ≥ 0.983AU (e.g. Rabinowitz et al. 1994). Sub