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.
Official naming citations of newly named small Solar System bodies are published in MPC's Minor Planet Circulars several times a year.[1] Recent citations can also be found on the JPL Small-Body Database (SBDB).[2] Until his death in 2016, German astronomer Lutz D. Schmadel compiled these citations into the Dictionary of Minor Planet Names (DMP) and regularly updated the collection.[3][4] Based on Paul Herget's The Names of the Minor Planets,[5] Schmadel also researched the unclear origin of numerous asteroids, most of which had been named prior to World War II. Meanings marked with * are from legacy sources may not be accurate. This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Government document "SBDB".
Gunaras Kakaras (born 1939) is a Lithuanian astronomer and one of the most skilled Lithuanian popularizers of astronomy. He is an expert on stellar photometry of binary stars and he wrote several popular books and many popular papers. He established the Lithuanian Museum of Ethnocosmology in 1990.
The Cape Fear High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina, United States. Since 1996, dozens of its students have submitted thousands of near-Earth objects observations to the MPC.
Sebastien Vauclair (born 1976) is a French astronomer working on high-energy astronomy. He is also a leader in dark-sky protection, especially for the dark-sky reserve known as the Reserve Internationale de Ciel Etoile du Pic du Midi, located in the Pyrenees.
This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Government document "SBDB".
