Astronomy19 papers
Mean-motion resonances in the Solar system
A curated collection of essential papers on mean-motion resonances in the asteroid belt, TNO, and beyond.
ES
Evgeny Smirnov
All Reviews
AstronomyN/A
High-order mean-motion resonances in the main belt
Smirnov, Evgeny & Milić Žitnik, Ivana (2025)
- Published
- Nov 1, 2025
- Journal
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- DOI
- 10.1051/0004-6361/202557400
At a GlanceAI
Including high-order mean-motion resonances shows that roughly half of studied main-belt asteroids are resonant and that two-body high-order resonances trap far more asteroids than previously recognized, indicating MMRs are a dominant factor in main-belt dynamics.
SummaryAI
The paper performs a large-scale numerical survey of main-belt asteroids to identify captures in two-body and three-body mean-motion resonances including high resonant orders, finding that a majority of the sample (53.76%) exhibits resonant behavior. It reveals that two-body high-order resonances account for far more resonant asteroids than previously reported, with a peak population near order ~36, and that about a quarter of resonant asteroids are involved in multiple resonances or resonance sticking.
Method Snapshot
numerical integration
Background
mean-motion resonances
AI Abstract
Aims: We present a statistical study of a representative sample of main-belt asteroids captured in low- to high-order two-body and three-body mean-motion resonances (MMRs), with two-body resonant order q up to 100 and three-body order q up to 10, to assess the fraction of resonant asteroids. Methods: Orbital elements were taken from the Minor Planet Center and NASA JPL, and we used the open-source resonances package to numerically integrate asteroid orbits for 100,000 years including planetary perturbations and to identify resonant behavior. Results: We find that 53.76% of asteroids in the studied sample are resonant, with 40.07% in two-body resonances and 23.72% in three-body resonances; the number of objects in two-body MMRs is substantially higher than previously reported (previous estimates 2.0–5.0%) because we include high-order resonances, with the greatest population found near resonant order ~36, and 25.57% of asteroids participate in multiple MMRs either simultaneously or via resonance sticking. Conclusions: Resonances with orders near the mean of those analyzed trap the largest numbers of asteroids, about half of the analyzed main-belt sample is resonant, and roughly one quarter of resonant asteroids migrate between resonances, highlighting the significant role of MMRs in shaping main-belt dynamics.
Previously, the number of resonant asteroids was estimated at 5–15%. Now it seems that more than 50% of asteroids in the main belt are resonant. Maybe even all of them...
— ES