The orbital clusters among the near Earth asteroids

Abstract

Fifteen orbital clusters (associations) were identified among ~20000 near Earth asteroids (NEAs). All associations were found with a high statistical reliability using a single linkage cluster analysis algorithm and three orbital similarity functions. The identified groups constitute a small fraction (4.74 %) of the entire sample. Nonetheless they may be hazardous to the Earth and its inhabitants. As it happens with meteoroid streams, every year the Earth comes very close to the orbits of each association. In two cases (2008TC3 and 2017FU102) the distance between the asteroid's and the Earth's orbits was smaller than our planet's radius. Among the members of the identified associations we found 331 objects larger than the Chelyabinsk asteroid and all of them approach the Earth's orbit at a distance smaller than 0.05 [au]. Two of the identified groups (4179) Toutatis and (251430) Itokawa support catastrophic origins of Toutatis and Itokawa asteroids. This study does not focus on the origin of the NEA associations, but on tracing them. Regardless of their origin, the identified groups pose a serious threat to the Earth. Hence, to facilitate their monitoring of we calculated coordinates of the theoretical radiants and calendar dates of their potential activity.