Designation of the asteroids
Contrary to an generally accepted idea, it is impossible to buy a Astéroïde. The privilege to name it cost with its discoverer.
Provisional designations
When an unknown star was followed during several nights, its coordinates can be sent to the Minor Planet Center which will provide a provisional designation.
This one is made up of the year, then of a letter which indicates half of the month when the discovery occurred, followed by a letter which indicates the order of discovered in this half of month. Letter I is not used to avoid confusion with figure 1, and Z is useless to indicate half of the month. If it 25 discovered more than there in the fortnight, one buckles with the letter has and one adds a number which indicates how much time the second letter was used in this half of month. For example was the twenty-seventh asteroid discovered in second about fifteen August 1992 (after #25 = 1992 QZ and #26 = {{PM2|1992 QA|1}}).
Thereafter, it is frequent that several provisional designations were given to the same object (for example, (5878) Charlène = 1979 XU = = 1992 QZ). If the object is new, once one will be certain to have enough measurements to calculate his orbit and more to lose it, the object will enter to the official catalog.
Final classification
That means that it will receive a final number (they thus are not inevitably numbered in the order of their discovery) and, possibly, a name. The first received the names of characters of the Greek Mythologie or Roman, then, following their exhaustion, one used others of them, like those of famous people, of the discoverers, their wives…
Today the rules are very flexible:
- not more than 18 characters;
- the made up names are to be avoided (the hyphen is possible but not space);
- the name must be easy to pronounce in several languages;
- the name should not shock;
- the name must be well differentiated from those already used;
- not of names of politicians or soldiers except if they died since more than one century;
- the names of pets are discouraged.
The discoverer who wants to baptize an object must provide an explanatory leaflet. For example here an extract of the note of (17059) Elvis:
There can also be some constraints for particular asteroids: the Troyens are named according to the heroes of the Trojan War (the Greeks in front of Jupiter and Troyens behind, although there is a defector in each camp: (617) Patrocle and (624) Hector) and the Centaur S according to their equivalent mythological.
The name becomes official when it was published with its note in the Minor Planet Circulars .
Other designations
The method of designation was introduced in 1925 but nevertheless is applied to the asteroids seen before this date, in substituent a has with the figure of the millenium. Thus, A904 OA is the first object discovered in second half of July 1904.There exist also four land surveying of the sky, carried out between 1960 and 1977, which gave designations consisting of a sequence number, a space and an identifier:
Let us quote in example 2040 RAIN, 3138 T-1, 1010 T-2 and 4101 T-3.
Old designations
Classification was introduced with the beginning of the year 1850. Initially, the editors of lIn 1893, the 25 letters were insufficient and designations with double letter were begun: 1893 Z, 1893 AA, 1893 AB, etc One decided to continue the following year, and thus 1893 AP was followed of 1894 AQ. In 1916, one reaches ZZ and, rather than to pass to designations to triple letter, one started again with 1916 AA. In the old publications, it is common that the J is omitted instead of I; I then is read as if it were a J.
The insertion of new discoveries in the sequence was problematic; one used the year followed by a space then of a small letter, a little as the system then used for temporary designations of the comets (which omits space to him). For example, 1915 has (whereas 1915a is the Comet Mellish, C/1915 C1). In 1914 one had to also use the form year plus Greek letter (alpha with gamma).
During the First World War, the observers located at Simëis in the Crimea, not having access to official designations, created their own system. There were two forms: year + Σ + letter (S) like Σ + figure. Σ is often transcribed SIGMA, such as for example SIGMA 1 (not to be confused with sigma 1!).
Lastly, there exist as the more-that-temporary designations, assigned by the observatories while waiting for as temporary designation is granted. With the advent of the modern means of communication, these designations naturally disappeared. They consisted typically of an identifier of observatory and a number. Some examples: Algiers CM, Arequipa has, Wolf 18, G 21, Plata 1951 I, PO 189, K3423, p (Uccle), 1923 W 21.
External bonds
- alphabetical List of the named asteroids
- provisional Database designation - final number
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