English

Small Near-Earth Objects in the Taurid Resonant Swarm

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2025-09-29 v1

Abstract

The Taurid Resonant Swarm (TRS) within the Taurid Complex hosts dynamically-concentrated debris in a 7:2 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter. Fireball observations have confirmed that the TRS is rich in sub-meter-sized particles, but whether this enhancement extends to larger, asteroid-sized objects remains unclear. Here we reanalyze the data obtained by a Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) campaign during the 2022 TRS encounter, and find that the TRS may host up to 102\sim10^2 Tunguska-sized objects and up to 103\sim10^3 Chelyabinsk-sized objects, the latter of which agrees the estimate derived from bolide records. This translates to an impact frequency of less than once every 4 million years. However, we caution that these numbers are based on the unverified assumption that the orbital distribution of the TRS asteroids follows that of fireball-sized meteoroids. Future wide-field facilities, such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, could take advantage of TRS's close approaches in the 2020-30s and validate the constraints of the asteroid-sized objects in the TRS.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.22602,
  title  = {Small Near-Earth Objects in the Taurid Resonant Swarm},
  author = {Quanzhi Ye and Jasmine Li and Denis Vida and David L. Clark and Eric C. Bellm},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.22602},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication on Acta Astronautica, PDC 2025 Special Issue