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".
Bhārat Gaṇarājya is the native name of the Republic of India, derived from the wise and pious King Bharata of ancient Hindu mythology. India is the discoverer's motherland.
Linda Dimare (born 1981), a researcher in celestial mechanics, mainly involved in the development of new algorithms and software for solar system dynamics.
Stefano Cicalò (born 1982) is a researcher in celestial mechanics, mainly involved in the development of new advanced algorithms and software for the complex dynamics of the radio science experiment of the ESA Bepi Colombo Mission to Mercury and the NASA JUNO mission to Jupiter.
Sara Salimbeni (born 1977), an Italian astronomer who has obtained her degree in physics at "La Sapienza" University of Rome in 2003, with a thesis on the cosmological evolution of the deep field galaxy luminosity function. As a Ph.D. student at the University of Rome at Tor Vergata, she is continuing her studies of galaxies and structures evolution.
Leon Mow (1919–2002) was an Australian philanthropist with a great interest in astronomy. In 1990 he donated the Leon Mow Dark Sky Site (an observation site) to the Astronomical Society of Victoria (ASV), so that others could share in his passion. The ASV holds a number of public star parties there each year.
Fabrizio Capaccioni (born 1957), an Italian astronomer who has studied the electromagnetic effects associated with impact craterization. He currently works on planetary research, with an emphasis on the study of the surface composition of solar-system bodies by means of reflectance spectroscopy techniques.
Priscilla Cerroni (born 1955), an Italian astronomer who works on experiments involving hypervelocity impacts and implications for the study of catastrophic collisions involving minor planets. She is currently a researcher at the Italian INAF-IASF and a team member of VIMS, the imaging spectrometer on board the Cassini mission.
Elisa Maria Alessi (born 1981) has worked for several years in the fields of space debris dynamics, orbit determination for interplanetary missions, and trajectory design in planet-satellite systems.
Federica Spoto (born 1985) has worked in the field of Solar System dynamics. In particular, she is involved in the Impact Monitoring computation and research at NEODyS and AstDyS.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a astronomical survey that uses adedicated 2.5-meter telescope to image more than a quarter of the celestial sphere. It has catalogued over 300 million objects and obtained spectra of over a million galaxies, quasars and stars