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".
Hanna von Hoerner (1942–2014) was a German astrophysicist and space entrepreneur. After studying physics at Heidelberg University she founded a company involved in the development of space instrumentation, primarily for solar system missions, such as Rosetta's COSIMA mass spectrometer
Sebastian von Hoerner (1919–2003) was a German astrophysicist and radio astronomer. After graduation and habilitation at Heidelberg he moved to the Green Bank radio observatory, contributing to the optimisation of radio telescope designs. He became one of the pioneers of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence
Günter Wendt (1924–2010) was a German aeronautical engineer. After World War II he moved to the US and joined the manned spaceflight program. He was pad leader during the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Skylab missions and was the person who closed the spacecraft hatch and bid farewell to launching astronauts
Dietrich Rex (1934–2016), a German physicist, university professor and head of the Spaceflight and Reactor Technology Institute of the Brunswick University of Technology.
This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Government document "SBDB".
