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Introduction to NEO Orbits

CNEOS computes high-precision orbit solutions for NEOs, using complete sets of astrometric observations, sophisticated debiasing and data weighting methods, detailed models of the perturbing forces, and the highly accurate numerical methods.

The resulting NEO orbit solutions, associated uncertainties and other parameters are archived in JPL’s Small-Body DataBase (SBDB), and can be accessed via the SBDB Browser and/or the SBDB Search Engine.

To propagate the orbit solutions and generate high-precision ephemerides as a function of time from this data, use the Horizons system.

While the SBDB contains data for all known asteroids and comets, search requests can be restricted to just the NEOs. The following link produces a table of orbital elements for all the NEOs: SBDB Search for NEOs. You can modify the selection criteria or contents of the table via the “Refine Search” link.