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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.
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 ...
Named minor planet Provisional This minor planet was named for... Ref · Catalog 10101 Fourier: 1992 BM 2: Joseph Fourier (1768–1830), a French mathematician who exerted a strong influence on mathematical physics through his Théorie analytique de la chaleur (1822), wherein he showed that the conduction of heat in solid bodies may be analyzed in terms of infinite mathematical series, the so ...
Pluto's reign. For decades, students learned the phrase "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" to remember the order of the planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars ...
A planet usually has at least around 10,000 times the mass of any natural satellites that orbit it, with a correspondingly much larger diameter. [3] The Earth–Moon system is a unique exception in the Solar System; at 3,474 kilometres (2,158 miles) across, the Moon is 0.273 times the diameter of Earth and about 1 ⁄ 80 of its mass. [ 4 ]
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.
The term 'dwarf planet' arguably contains two words, a noun (planet) and an adjective (dwarf). Thus, the term could suggest that a dwarf planet is a type of planet, even though the IAU explicitly defines a dwarf planet as not so being. By this formulation therefore, 'dwarf planet' and 'minor planet' are best considered compound nouns.
A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. [1]