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".
The National Association for the Protection of the Sky and Nightly Environments in France (ANPCEN) was established in March 1999. Presently 581 communities have joined the association. Recently Strasbourg, a city of 300,000 inhabitants, has signed the association's charter.
Yuki Kajiura (born 1965) is a Japanese composer and musical producer. She has composed the soundtrack music for many anime films and has formed the musical groups FictionJunction and Kalafina.
František Zloch (born 1949) is a retired solar observer of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Ondřejov. He conducted systematic observations of solar activity from 1981 to 2011, which were used by the International Patrol Service. He was also the founder and first director of the Rimavská Sobota Observatory (1975–1981).
Kalafina, a Japanese vocal group formed in 2007 by composer Yuki Kajiura to produce the soundtrack music for the anime "Kara no Kyoukai", also known in English as "The Garden of Sinners". Their popularity has grown and they are now a neoclassical pop group presenting frequent concerts in Japan and internationally.
William Kwong Yu Yeung (born 1960), a Canadian amateur astronomer and one of the world's most prolific amateur discoverers of minor planets and comets. He has also found J002E3, believed to be the Apollo 12 S-IVB stage.
Paul Jorden (born 1951) has a unique career that has included leadership positions in the scientific community (Royal Greenwich Observatory) and industry (e2v technologies). His teams have developed state-of-the-art imaging sensors and applied them to ground-based and space astronomy over a period of more than three decades.
John Tonry (born 1953), of the University of Hawaii, has worked at the cutting edge of science and technology in astronomy. He developed the orthogonal transfer CCD concept, and a new method for extragalactic distance determinations, and was on the team that made the Nobel Prize winning discovery of dark energy.
Stephen Holland (born 1956), of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is a pioneer in the development of silicon detectors for medical imaging, x-ray photon sciences, astronomy, and high-energy physics.