Re: [guide-user] Re: Asteroids and Comets...Again

Bill J Gray Jul 24, 2008

Hi Dave,

(1922) Zulu and (1951) Lick aren't NEOs, so they won't appear
in any of the NEO files. (The MPC considers any object with a
perihelion distance of less than 1.3 AU to be an NEO. You can
argue with this on several counts -- some of those objects will
never get closer to us than Mars, etc. -- but it does make
for a simple definition.)

Both objects did appear in the latest "Unusual Minor Planets"
MPEC (2008-O08). The MPC does provide an 'unusuals' file in
MPCORB format, but it has a very different list of asteroids.
As best I can tell, the only way to get those 'unusual' objects
is to grab the entire MPCORB file.

-- Bill