Amor objects are a subset of near-Earth asteroids (see Near-Earth objects), distinguished from the Apollo objects (q.v.) and Aten objects (q.v.) by orbital characteristics. The Amor objects have semimajor axes greater than that of the Earth (i.e. somewhat greater than 1 AU). They are named for a member of the class, asteroid Amor, discovered in 1932 by E. Delporte. The best known member of the class, however, is the larger asteroid Eros. The Amors are the most populous of the near-Earth objects, probably numbering in the thousands (McFadden, Tholen and Veeder, 1989).
No clear compositional trends are present in the Aten objects; they appear to have originated in multiple source regions. S-class asteroids are most common, but this may be a selection effect, since these are brighter than most other asteroid classes (C in particular). (See Asteroid: compositional structure and taxonomy.)
Since the projected dynamical lifetimes of objects in near-Earth space are, at about 108years, much...
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Shirley, J.H. (1997). Amor object . In: Encyclopedia of Planetary Science. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4520-4_9
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