Science, Vol.281, No.5385, 2022-2024, 1998
Origin of multikilometer Earth- and Mars-crossing asteroids : A quantitative simulation
Orbital dynamic simulations show that many asteroids in the main asteroid belt are driven toward Mars-crossing orbits by numerous weak mean motion resonances, which slowly increase the orbital ellipticity of the asteroids. In addition, half of the Mars-crossing asteroids (MCAs) transition to Earth-crossing asteroids (ECAs) in less than 20 million years. This scenario quantitatively explains the observed number of large ECAs and MCAs.