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As minor planet discoveries are confirmed, they are given a permanent number by the IAU's Minor Planet Center (MPC), and the discoverers can then submit names for them, following the IAU's naming conventions. The list below concerns those minor planets in the specified number-range that have received names, and explains the meanings of those names.
As minor planet discoveries are confirmed, they are given a permanent number by the IAU's Minor Planet Center (MPC), and the discoverers can then submit names for them, following the IAU's naming conventions. The list below concerns those minor planets in the specified number-range that have received names, and explains the meanings of those names.
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune.It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun.
The list of minor planets consists of more than 700 partial lists, each containing 1000 minor planets grouped into 10 tables. The data is sourced from the Minor Planet Center (MPC) and expanded with data from the JPL SBDB (mean-diameter), Johnston's archive (sub-classification) and others (see detailed field descriptions below).
"Inferior planet" refers to Mercury and Venus, which are closer to the Sun than Earth is. "Superior planet" refers to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune (the latter two added later), which are further from the Sun than Earth is. The terms are sometimes used more generally; for example, Earth is an inferior planet relative to Mars.
A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve orbital dominance like the eight classical planets of the Solar System.
Following a proposal of the discovering astronomer, new minor planet names are approved and published by IAU's WGSBN several times a year. [1] The WGSBN applies a set of rules for naming minor planets. [3] These range from syntax restrictions to non-offensive meanings. Over the years the rules have changed several times.
According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. [ a ] Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term minor planet , but that year's meeting reclassified minor planets and comets into dwarf planets and ...