Alinda family
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The Alinda asteroids are a group of asteroids with a semi-major axis of about 2.5 AU and an orbital eccentricity approximately between 0.4 and 0.65. The namesake is 887 Alinda, discovered by Max Wolf in 1918.
These objects are held in this region by the 1:3 orbital resonance with Jupiter, which results in a 4:1 resonance with Earth. An object in this resonance has its orbital eccentricity steadily increased by gravitational interactions with Jupiter until it eventually has a close encounter with an inner planet that breaks the resonance.
Some Alindas have perihelia very close to Earth's orbit, resulting in a series of close encounters at almost exactly four-year intervals, due to the 4:1 resonance.
One consequence of this is that if an Alinda asteroid happens to be in an unfavorable position for viewing at the time of its close approach to Earth (for instance, at a small elongation from the Sun), then this situation can persist for decades. Indeed, as of 2004, the Alinda asteroids (3360) 1981 VA and 1915 Quetzálcoatl had not been observed since 1985, and 2608 Seneca had not been observed since 1994.
Some Alinda asteroids are shown below:
| Name | a | e |
|---|---|---|
| 887 Alinda | 2.48422 | 0.56356 |
| 1429 Pemba | 2.55185 | 0.33858 |
| 1550 Tito | 2.54673 | 0.30984 |
| 1607 Mavis | 2.54783 | 0.30741 |
| 1915 Quetzálcoatl | 2.54207 | 0.57170 |
| 2608 Seneca | 2.5035 | 0.57620 |
| (3360) 1981 VA | 2.46803 | 0.74295 |
| 3628 Božněmcová | 2.53691 | 0.30052 |
| 3806 Tremaine | 2.54058 | 0.31301 |
| 4179 Toutatis | 2.51005 | 0.63423 |
| 5847 Wakiya | 2.54442 | 0.30086 |
| 5864 Montgolfier | 2.55866 | 0.32007 |
| 6318 Cronkite | 2.51002 | 0.46522 |
| (6322) 1991 CQ | 2.51628 | 0.47349 |
| 6489 Golevka | 2.50768 | 0.60382 |
| (6491) 1991 OA | 2.50959 | 0.58946 |
| 7092 Cadmus | 2.52493 | 0.70202 |
| 7345 Happer | 2.45047 | 0.32467 |
| (7568) 1988 VJ2 | 2.52739 | 0.33216 |
| (7569) 1989 BK | 2.54950 | 0.30348 |
| 7638 Gladman | 2.53634 | 0.31606 |
| (8201) 1994AH2 | 2.53362 | 0.70851 |
| 8709 Kadlu | 2.53497 | 0.48432 |
| (9047) 1991 QF | 2.52479 | 0.31661 |
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| (For other objects and regions, see: Binary asteroids, Asteroid moons and the Solar system) |
| (For a complete listing, see: List of asteroids. For pronunciation, see: Pronunciation of asteroid names.) |