<p>No, they are being discovered where they are in their (usually fairly stable) orbits. They are not discovered because they are arriving or going to some particular location. </p>

<p>The one exception is long-periodic comets that have fallen in from the Oort cloud and now pass through the inner parts of the solar system, maybe to be captured by the gravity of Jupiter in a closer orbit. </p>

<p>(Strictly speaking all these objects are all pulled towards a central location, the Sun, but because they already have a sideways velocity that just means an orbiting motion where they are constantly falling around it.)</p>

<p>NEOs are too light and small to interact much with each other - the gravitational influence between them is microscopic compared to the influence from the planets which is usually microscopic compared to the sun's influence. </p>

<p>The reason we are seeing a lot more NEOs now is that new instruments are better and more <a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/site_all.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">searches are being conducted</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Near-Earth_Asteroid_Research" rel="nofollow noreferrer">LINEAR</a> for example found  231,082 small Solar System bodies (of which 2,423 are NEOs) in the early 2000s and the Catalina Sky Survey has found 6,515 NEOs since 2009.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-28T01:53:33.437Z
This does a good job of answering the question, but consider talking a little bit about why we are finding more NEO's recently.
Phiteros
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-28T06:47:50.237Z
@Phiteros - Added a paragraph about it.
Anders Sandberg
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-28T08:16:24.283Z
Jupiter is unlikely to capture comets.   "maybe to be captured by Jupiter" should be reworded or removed.   Comet capture is rare, what happens is comet orbits are changed when they pass by a massive object, either a star or rogue planet passing through or close to the oort cloud every million years or so, or if/when comets pass close to a planet.   Flying past and somewhat close to Jupiter will change a comets trajectory, but almost never lead to a capture.   Granted, there are capture-moons and Jupiter has several, so it happens, but it's rare and never long-period comets.
userLTK
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-28T08:17:05.417Z
Apart from that one line, nice answer.  Spot on.   :-)
userLTK
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-27T17:41:16.997Z
2018-04-28T06:47:29.107Z
2018-04-28T06:47:29.107Z
Anders Sandberg
<p>With all of the new NEOs (near-earth objects) are they being pulled in or are they interacting with each other? </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-27T21:49:18.997Z
Their gravitational interaction with eachother is surely a non-issue here.
peterh
<comets><natural-satellites>
New NEOs are found daily. Is there any evidence gravity is pulling them to a centralised location?
Alona Moon
# New NEOs are found daily. Is there any evidence gravity is pulling them to a centralised location?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-04-27)

With all of the new NEOs (near-earth objects) are they being pulled in or are they interacting with each other?

**Tags:** comets, natural-satellites

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Their gravitational interaction with eachother is surely a non-issue here.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2018-04-27. Score: 3

No, they are being discovered where they are in their (usually fairly stable) orbits. They are not discovered because they are arriving or going to some particular location.

The one exception is long-periodic comets that have fallen in from the Oort cloud and now pass through the inner parts of the solar system, maybe to be captured by the gravity of Jupiter in a closer orbit.

(Strictly speaking all these objects are all pulled towards a central location, the Sun, but because they already have a sideways velocity that just means an orbiting motion where they are constantly falling around it.)

NEOs are too light and small to interact much with each other - the gravitational influence between them is microscopic compared to the influence from the planets which is usually microscopic compared to the sun's influence.

The reason we are seeing a lot more NEOs now is that new instruments are better and more [searches are being conducted](https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/site_all.html). [LINEAR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Near-Earth_Asteroid_Research) for example found 231,082 small Solar System bodies (of which 2,423 are NEOs) in the early 2000s and the Catalina Sky Survey has found 6,515 NEOs since 2009.

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: This does a good job of answering the question, but consider talking a little bit about why we are finding more NEO's recently.  
> **username_2**: @username_3 - Added a paragraph about it.  
> **username_4**: Jupiter is unlikely to capture comets.   "maybe to be captured by Jupiter" should be reworded or removed.   Comet capture is rare, what happens is comet orbits are changed when they pass by a massive object, either a star or rogue planet passing through or close to the oort cloud every million years or so, or if/when comets pass close to a planet.   Flying past and somewhat close to Jupiter will change a comets trajectory, but almost never lead to a capture.   Granted, there are capture-moons and Jupiter has several, so it happens, but it's rare and never long-period comets.  
> **username_4**: Apart from that one line, nice answer.  Spot on.   :-)  

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