What is Minor planet designation?
'''Minor planet designations''' are number-name combinations given by the [[Minor Planet Center]], a part of the [[International Astronomical Union|IAU]]. They are used for [[dwarf planet]]s and small Solar System bodies such as [[asteroid]]s, but not [[comet]]s. They are given to a body once its orbit is secured and unrelated to [[provisional designation]]s, given when an object is found. The two parts of a formal designation are * a number, historically given in a similar order to the order that it was found, now given only after the orbit is secured * a name, either the name assigned by the astronomer who found it or, more commonly, the provisional designation.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.iau.org/MINOR_PLANETS_NAMING.245.0.html |title=IAU FAQ page |access-date=2009-03-03 |archive-date=2006-02-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060216182947/http://www.iau.org/MINOR_PLANETS_NAMING.245.0.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> It looks like this: <code>(number) Name</code>, for example [[90377 Sedna|(90377) Sedna]] or {{mpl|(55636) 2002 TX|300}}. According to what the astronomer wants, the brackets are now often removed, as in [[90377 Sedna]]. In practice, however, the number is primarily a catalog entry for any reasonably well-known object. Therefore, the name or provisional designation is generally used in the formal designation: [[90377 Sedna|Sedna]], {{mpl|2002 TX|300}}. The rule for [[Natural satellite|moons]] of minor planets, such as the formal designation [[(87) Sylvia I Romulus]] for the asteroid moon [[Romulus (moon)|Romulus]], is an extension of the Roman numeral convention used, on and off, for the moons of the planets since [[Galileo]]'s time. The [[Minor Planet Center]] also managed comets but used a different cataloging system. == History == By 1851, there were 15 asteroids, all but one with their own symbol. The symbols were becoming less and less simple, and, as they had to be drawn by hand, astronomers found some of them hard to draw. This difficulty was addressed by [[Benjamin Apthorp