Brown initially nicknamed Sedna "The Flying Dutchman", or "Dutch", after a legendary ghost ship, because its slow movement had initially masked its presence from his team. For an official name for the object, Brown settled on "Sedna", a name from Inuit mythology, which Brown chose partly because the Inuit were the closest polar culture to his home in Pasadena, and partly because the name, unlike Quaoar, would be easily pronounceable. On his website, he wrote: Brown also suggested to the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) Minor Planet Center that any future objects discovered in Sedna's orbital region should also be named after entities in arctic mythologies.
Naming
90377 Sedna
90377 Sedna | Naming
Michael Brown. Michael Brown Michael Brown Michael Brown.
where is sedna located in the solar system
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In the outer reaches of the Solar System.
assistant
who discovered it?
user
Michael Brown (Caltech), Chad Trujillo (Gemini Observatory), and David Rabinowitz (Yale University).
assistant
who gave it it's name?
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90377 Sedna, a trans-Neptunian object discovered by Michael Brown (Caltech), Chad Trujillo (Gemini Observatory) and David Rabinowitz (Yale University) on November 14, 2003, is named after her.
Sedna (mythology) | In astronomy
Sedna (provisionally designated ) was discovered by Michael Brown (Caltech), Chad Trujillo (Gemini Observatory), and David Rabinowitz (Yale University) on 14 November 2003. The discovery formed part of a survey begun in 2001 with the Samuel Oschin telescope at Palomar Observatory near San Diego, California, using Yale's 160-megapixel Palomar Quest camera. On that day, an object was observed to move by 4.6 arcseconds over 3.1 hours relative to stars, which indicated that its distance was about 100 AU. Follow-up observations were made in November–December 2003 with the SMARTS telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, the Tenagra IV telescope in Nogales, Arizona, and the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
90377 Sedna | Discovery
The former name was later used for 90377 Sedna, a distant trans-Neptunian object discovered in 2003.
Siarnaq | Naming
Brown initially nicknamed Sedna "The Flying Dutchman", or "Dutch", after a legendary ghost ship, because its slow movement had initially masked its presence from his team. For an official name for the object, Brown settled on "Sedna", a name from Inuit mythology, which Brown chose partly because the Inuit were the closest polar culture to his home in Pasadena, and partly because the name, unlike Quaoar, would be easily pronounceable. On his website, he wrote: Brown also suggested to the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) Minor Planet Center that any future objects discovered in Sedna's orbital region should also be named after entities in arctic mythologies.
90377 Sedna | Naming
The team made the name "Sedna" public before the object had been officially numbered. Brian Marsden, the head of the Minor Planet Center, said that such an action was a violation of protocol, and that some members of the IAU might vote against it. No objection was raised to the name, and no competing names were suggested. The IAU's Committee on Small Body Nomenclature accepted the name in September 2004, and also considered that, in similar cases of extraordinary interest, it might in the future allow names to be announced before they were officially numbered.
90377 Sedna | Naming
Others speculate that it might have been tugged into its current orbit by a passing star, perhaps one within the Sun's birth cluster (an open cluster), or even that it was captured from another star system. Another hypothesis suggests that its orbit may be evidence for a large planet beyond the orbit of Neptune.
90377 Sedna | Introduction
Combining those with precovery observations taken at the Samuel Oschin telescope in August 2003, and from the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking consortium in 2001–2002, allowed accurate determination of its orbit. The calculations showed that the object was moving along a distant highly eccentric orbit, at a distance of 90.3 AU from the Sun. Precovery images have later been found in images of the Palomar Digitized Sky Survey dating back to 25 September 1990.
90377 Sedna | Discovery
Mike Brown and his team favored the hypothesis that Sedna was lifted into its current orbit by a star from the Sun's birth cluster, arguing that Sedna's aphelion of about 1,000 AU, which is relatively close compared to those of long-period comets, is not distant enough to be affected by passing stars at their current distances from the Sun. They propose that Sedna's orbit is best explained by the Sun having formed in an open cluster of several stars that gradually disassociated over time. That hypothesis has also been advanced by both Alessandro Morbidelli and Scott Jay Kenyon. Computer simulations by Julio A.
90377 Sedna | Origin
"I call Sedna a fossil record of the earliest Solar System", said Brown in 2006. "Eventually, when other fossil records are found, Sedna will help tell us how the Sun formed and the number of stars that were close to the Sun when it formed." A 2007–2008 survey by Brown, Rabinowitz and Megan Schwamb attempted to locate another member of Sedna's hypothetical population. Although the survey was sensitive to movement out to 1,000 AU and discovered the likely dwarf planet Gonggong, it detected no new sednoid. Subsequent simulations incorporating the new data suggested about 40 Sedna-sized objects probably exist in this region, with the brightest being about Eris's magnitude (−1.0).
90377 Sedna | Population
90377 Sedna (520 AU average) is a large, reddish object with a gigantic, highly elliptical orbit that takes it from about 76 AU at perihelion to 940 AU at aphelion and takes 11,400 years to complete. Mike Brown, who discovered the object in 2003, asserts that it cannot be part of the scattered disc or the Kuiper belt because its perihelion is too distant to have been affected by Neptune's migration. He and other astronomers consider it to be the first in an entirely new population, sometimes termed "distant detached objects" (DDOs), which also may include the object , which has a perihelion of 45 AU, an aphelion of 415 AU, and an orbital period of 3,420 years.
Solar System | Detached objects
Sedna has an exceptionally long and elongated orbit, taking approximately 11,400 years to complete and a distant point of closest approach to the Sun at 76 AU. These facts have led to much speculation about its origin. The Minor Planet Center currently places Sedna in the scattered disc, a group of objects sent into highly elongated orbits by the gravitational influence of Neptune. This classification has been contested because its perihelion is too large for it to have been scattered by a known planet, leading some astronomers to informally refer to it as the first known member of the inner Oort cloud.
90377 Sedna | Introduction
Fernandez and Adrian Brunini suggest that multiple close passes by young stars in such a cluster would pull many objects into Sedna-like orbits. A study by Morbidelli and Levison suggested that the most likely explanation for Sedna's orbit was that it had been perturbed by a close (approximately 800 AU) pass by another star in the first 100 million years or so of the Solar System's existence.
90377 Sedna | Origin
Because Sedna has no known moons, determining its mass is currently impossible without sending a space probe. Sedna is currently the largest trans-Neptunian Sun-orbiting object not known to have a satellite. Only a single attempt has been made to find a satellite, and it has been suggested that there is a chance of up to 25% that a satellite could have been missed. Observations from the SMARTS telescope show that in visible light Sedna is one of the reddest objects in the Solar System, nearly as red as Mars. Chad Trujillo and his colleagues suggest that Sedna's dark red colour is caused by a surface coating of hydrocarbon sludge, or tholin, formed from simpler organic compounds after long exposure to ultraviolet radiation.
90377 Sedna | Physical characteristics
Sedna has a V-band absolute magnitude (H) of about 1.8, and it is estimated to have an albedo of about 0.32, thus giving it a diameter of approximately 1,000 km. At the time of its discovery it was the intrinsically brightest object found in the Solar System since Pluto in 1930. In 2004, the discoverers placed an upper limit of 1,800 km on its diameter, but by 2007 this was revised downward to less than 1,600 km after observation by the Spitzer Space Telescope. In 2012, measurements from the Herschel Space Observatory suggested that Sedna's diameter was , which would make it smaller than Pluto's moon Charon.
90377 Sedna | Physical characteristics
Its surface is homogeneous in colour and spectrum; this may be because Sedna, unlike objects nearer the Sun, is rarely impacted by other bodies, which would expose bright patches of fresh icy material like that on 8405 Asbolus. Sedna and two other very distant objects – and – share their color with outer classical Kuiper belt objects and the centaur 5145 Pholus, suggesting a similar region of origin. Trujillo and colleagues have placed upper limits in Sedna's surface composition of 60% for methane ice and 70% for water ice. The presence of methane further supports the existence of tholins on Sedna's surface, because they are produced by irradiation of methane.
90377 Sedna | Physical characteristics
This minor planet was named after American astronomer Michael E. Brown (born 1965), a professor of astronomy at Caltech in California, and best known for his discoveries of trans-Neptunian objects, in particular the dwarf planet 136199 Eris. The official naming citation was published on 24 July 2002 ().
11714 Mikebrown | Naming
According to science writer Govert Schilling, Brown initially wanted to call the object "Lila", after a concept in Hindu mythology that described the cosmos as the outcome of a game played by Brahman. The name was very similar to "Lilah", the name of Brown's newborn daughter. Brown was mindful of not making his name public before it had been officially accepted. He had done so with Sedna a year previously, and had been heavily criticized. However, no objection was raised to the Sedna name other than the breach of protocol, and no competing names were suggested for Sedna. He listed the address of his personal web page announcing the discovery as "/~mbrown/planetlila" and in the chaos following the controversy over the discovery of Haumea, forgot to change it.
Eris (dwarf planet) | Choosing an official name
If Sedna formed in its current location, the Sun's original protoplanetary disc must have extended as far as 75 AU into space. Also, Sedna's initial orbit must have been approximately circular, otherwise its formation by the accretion of smaller bodies into a whole would not have been possible, because the large relative velocities between planetesimals would have been too disruptive. Therefore, it must have been tugged into its current eccentric orbit by a gravitational interaction with another body. In their initial paper, Brown, Rabinowitz and colleagues suggested three possible candidates for the perturbing body: an unseen planet beyond the Kuiper belt, a single passing star, or one of the young stars embedded with the Sun in the stellar cluster in which it formed.
90377 Sedna | Origin
, also written as (126154) 2001 YH140, is a resonant trans-Neptunian object discovered on 18 December 2001, by American astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at the Palomar Observatory in California. It measures approximately 345 kilometers in diameter.
(126154) 2001 YH140 | Introduction
This question was answered under the International Astronomical Union definition of a planet, adopted on 24 August 2006, which mandated that a planet must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. Sedna has a Stern–Levison parameter estimated to be much less than 1, and therefore cannot be considered to have cleared the neighborhood, even though no other objects have yet been discovered in its vicinity. To be a dwarf planet, Sedna must be in hydrostatic equilibrium. It is bright enough, and therefore large enough, that this is expected to be the case, and several astronomers have called it one.
90377 Sedna | Classification
When first discovered, Sedna was thought to have an unusually long rotational period (20 to 50 days). It was initially speculated that Sedna's rotation was slowed by the gravitational pull of a large binary companion, similar to Pluto's moon Charon. A search for such a satellite by the Hubble Space Telescope in March 2004 found nothing, and subsequent measurements from the MMT telescope suggest a much shorter rotation period of about 10 hours, more typical for a body of its size.
90377 Sedna | Orbit and rotation
, provisionally known as , is a resonant trans-Neptunian object from the outermost regions of the Solar System, approximately 154 kilometers in diameter. It discovered on 20 December 2001, by American astronomers Chad Trujillo, Glenn Smith and Michael E. Brown at the Palomar Observatory in California.
(126155) 2001 YJ140 | Introduction
In their paper announcing the discovery of Sedna, Mike Brown and his colleagues described it as the first observed body belonging to the Oort cloud, the hypothetical cloud of comets thought to exist nearly a light-year from the Sun. They observed that, unlike scattered disc objects such as Eris, Sedna's perihelion (76 AU) is too distant for it to have been scattered by the gravitational influence of Neptune. Because it is a great deal closer to the Sun than was expected for an Oort cloud object, and has an inclination roughly in line with the planets and the Kuiper belt, they described the planetoid as being an "inner Oort cloud object", situated in the disc reaching from the Kuiper belt to the spherical part of the cloud.
90377 Sedna | Origin
Sedna's highly elliptical orbit means that the probability of its detection was roughly 1 in 80, which suggests that, unless its discovery was a fluke, another 40–120 Sedna-sized objects would exist within the same region. Another object, , has a similar but less extreme orbit: it has a perihelion of 44.3 AU, an aphelion of 394 AU, and an orbital period of 3,240 years. It may have been affected by the same processes as Sedna. Each of the proposed mechanisms for Sedna's extreme orbit would leave a distinct mark on the structure and dynamics of any wider population. If a trans-Neptunian planet was responsible, all such objects would share roughly the same perihelion (about 80 AU).
90377 Sedna | Population
The Minor Planet Center, which officially catalogs the objects in the Solar System, classifies Sedna as a scattered object. This grouping is heavily questioned, and many astronomers have suggested that it, together with a few other objects (e.g. ), be placed in a new category of distant objects named "extended scattered disc objects" (E-SDO), "detached objects", "distant detached objects" (DDO), or "scattered-extended" in the formal classification by the Deep Ecliptic Survey. The discovery of Sedna resurrected the question of which astronomical objects should be considered planets and which should not. On 15 March 2004, articles on Sedna in the popular press reported that a tenth planet had been discovered.
90377 Sedna | Classification
Sedna was later surpassed by Eris, which was detected by the same survey near aphelion at 97 AU. The orbits of some long-period comets extend farther than that of Sedna; they are too dim to be discovered except when approaching perihelion in the inner Solar System. Even as Sedna nears its perihelion in mid-2076, the Sun would appear merely as an extremely bright star-like pinpoint in its sky, 100 times brighter than a full moon on Earth (for comparison, the Sun appears from Earth to be roughly 400,000 times brighter than the full Moon), and too far away to be visible as a disc to the naked eye.
90377 Sedna | Orbit and rotation
90377 Sedna, or simply Sedna, is a large planetoid in the outer reaches of the Solar System that was, , at a distance of about from the Sun, about three times as far as Neptune. Spectroscopy has revealed that Sedna's surface composition is similar to those of some other trans-Neptunian objects, being largely a mixture of water, methane, and nitrogen ices with tholins. Its surface is one of the reddest among Solar System objects. It is a possible dwarf planet. Sedna is approximately tied with and as the largest planetoid not known to have a moon. For most of its orbit, it is even farther from the Sun than at present, with its aphelion estimated at 937 AU (31 times Neptune's distance, or about 1.5% of a light-year), making it one of the most distant-known objects in the Solar System other than long-period comets.
90377 Sedna | Introduction
was discovered on 10 January 2002, by astronomers at the Palomar Observatory in California. Astronomers involved in the discovery were Michael Brown, Chad Trujillo, Eleanor Helin, Michael Hicks, Kenneth Lawrence and Steven H. Pravdo. It is located near the Kuiper cliff.
(55565) 2002 AW197 | Discovery
was discovered by Sahlmann et al. (2013) using the ESO telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory. It is part of an ultracool binary system.
DENIS-P J082303.1−491201 b | Discovery
It is named after the Canadian astronomer David Balam, principal observer at Victoria's Climenhaga Observatory in British Columbia. The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 31 May 1988 ().
3749 Balam | Naming
This minor planet was named for Californian amateur astronomer and photometrist Robert D. Stephens (born 1955), who is an expert in lightcurve photometry of minor planets since 1999. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 24 July 2002 ().
39890 Bobstephens | Naming
, provisional designation , is a resonant trans-Neptunian object and possible dwarf planet from the circumstellar disc of the Kuiper belt in the outer Solar System, approximately 440 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 10 February 1999, by astronomers Jane Luu, David Jewitt and Chad Trujillo at Mauna Kea Observatories on the Big Island of Hawaii, United States.
(469306) 1999 CD158 | Introduction
As of 2018, this minor planet remains unnamed.
(469306) 1999 CD158 | Naming
Orcus was discovered on 17 February 2004, by American astronomers Michael Brown of Caltech, Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory, and David Rabinowitz of Yale University. Precovery images taken by the Palomar Observatory as early as 8 November 1951 were later obtained from the Digitized Sky Survey.
90482 Orcus | Discovery
Proposed by Lutz Schmadel and endorsed by Edward Bowell and Brian Marsden, the approved naming citation was prepared by Schmadel and published by the Minor Planet Center on 21 November 1991 ().
2572 Annschnell | Naming
This minor planet was named after British astronomer and professor of astronomy at the University of Sheffield. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 2 November 1990 ().
4205 David Hughes | Naming
Discovered on May 27, 1992, by E. F. Helin and K. J. Lawrence working at the Palomar observatory as part of NASA's Planet-Crossing Asteroid Survey, it was given the provisional designation . Later, it was renamed Braille in honour of Louis Braille as suggested by Kennedy Space Center software engineer Kerry Babcock in The Planetary Society's contest titled "Name That Asteroid". The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 28 July 1999 ().
9969 Braille | Discovery and naming
, provisional designation ", is a sizable centaur and retrograde damocloid from the outer Solar System, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 18 December 2008 by astronomers with the Siding Spring Survey at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. The minor planet was numbered in 2012 and has since not been named.
(342842) 2008 YB3 | Introduction
It was discovered to be a binary asteroid by Arecibo Observatory in March 2013.
(7888) 1993 UC | Introduction
" was first discovered on 23 February 1950 by Carl A. Wirtanen at Lick Observatory. It was observed for seventeen days and then lost because the short observation arc resulted in large uncertainties in Wirtanen's orbital solution. On 31 December 2000, it was recovered at Lowell Observatory and was announced as on 4 January 2001. Just two hours later it was recognized as .
(29075) 1950 DA | Discovery and nomenclature
This minor planet was named after Katharine Barr Berman (born 1998) awardee in the Intel Science Talent Search of 2016. She was a finalist for her cellular and molecular biology project. At the time, she attended the U.S. Hastings High School in New York. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 21 May 2016 ().
32145 Katberman | Naming
As of 2018, this minor planet has not been named yet.
(7025) 1993 QA | Naming
The minor planet 5040 Rabinowitz, a Phocaea asteroid discovered by Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory in 1972, was named in his honor and for his work at Spacewatch.
David L. Rabinowitz | Awards and honors
This minor planet was named in honor of Elena ("Lena") Petrovna Neujmina (1860–1942), mother of the discovering astronomer Grigory Neujmin.
789 Lena | Naming
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 30 August 2004 (). As of 2018, it has not been named.
(85182) 1991 AQ | Numbering and naming
This minor planet was numbered on 2 February 1999 (). As of 2018, it has not been named.
(9948) 1990 QB2 | Naming
It was discovered on 20 February 1999, by American and British astronomers Jane Luu, Chad Trujillo and David C. Jewitt at the U.S. Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. As no precoveries were taken, the minor planet's observation arc begins with its discovery observation in 1999.
(79983) 1999 DF9 | Discovery
As of 2018, this minor planet has not been named.
(7482) 1994 PC1 | Naming
This minor planet was named in 1987 for Canadian John Leroy Climenhaga of the University of Victoria, in honour of his work in astrophysics. The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 16 December 1986 ().
3034 Climenhaga | Naming
, provisional designation , is a trans-Neptunian object in the outer regions of the Solar System, approximately 500 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 10 May 2007, by the U.S. Palomar Observatory in California. The team of unaccredited astronomers at Palomar consisted of Megan E. Schwamb, Michael E. Brown and David L. Rabinowitz The minor planet orbits the Sun at a distance of 38.6–40.6 AU once every 249 years and 1 month (90,983 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.02 and an inclination of 18° with respect to the ecliptic. The first precovery was taken at the Australian Siding Spring Observatory during the Digitized Sky Survey in 1984, extending the body's observation arc by 23 years prior to its discovery observation.
(470308) 2007 JH43 | Introduction
Sedna has the second longest orbital period of any known object in the Solar System of comparable size or larger, calculated at around 11,400 years. Its orbit is extremely eccentric, with an aphelion estimated at 937 AU and a perihelion at about 76 AU. This perihelion was the largest of that of any known Solar System object until the discovery of . At its aphelion, Sedna orbits the Sun at a mere 1.3% of Earth's orbital speed. When Sedna was discovered it was 89.6 AU from the Sun approaching perihelion, and was the most distant object in the Solar System observed.
90377 Sedna | Orbit and rotation
, provisional designation " is a mid-sized Jupiter trojan from the Trojan camp, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 2 October 1989, by American astronomer Schelte Bus at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The dark Jovian asteroid has a rotation period of 5.8 hours. It has not been named since its numbering in March 1993.
(5476) 1989 TO11 | Introduction
This minor planet was named by the discoverer. Any reference of this name to a person or occurrence is unknown.
868 Lova | Naming
This minor planet was numbered on 31 August 1999 (). As of 2018, it has not been named.
(11395) 1998 XN77 | Naming
This minor planet was named after American astronomer David Rabinowitz (born 1960), a discoverer of minor planets himself and researcher at Yale University. The naming also honors his work for the Spacewatch program. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 1 September 1993 ().
5040 Rabinowitz | Naming
The discoverer named this minor planet after his wife, Benita Segal (born 1964), a major supporter of the observatory. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 20 November 2002 ().
45737 Benita | Naming
was discovered on 9 October 2002 by Mike Brown's team at the Palomar Observatory. It has been observed 76 times back to 5 August 2000.
(84522) 2002 TC302 | Discovery
This minor planet was named after the European Space Agency (ESA), which formed in 1974. The name was suggested by French astronomer Jean Louis Heudier, after whom the asteroid 4602 Heudier was named. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 15 December 2005 ().
9950 ESA | Naming
As of 2018, this minor planet has not been named by the Minor Planet Center.
(24835) 1995 SM55 | Naming
Due to its uncertain orbit, this minor planet has not been numbered. A numbering and subsequent naming will only be considered upon its rediscovery.
1995 SN55 | Numbering and naming
This minor planet was named after American planetary geologist with the United States Geological Survey, Doris Blackman Weir. The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 12 December 1989 ().
4085 Weir | Naming
This minor planet was named after American amateur astronomer and astrophotographer Dennis di Cicco. The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 10 April 1990 ().
3841 Dicicco | Naming
However, the name's spelling was later reconsidered by Brown due to its ambiguous pronunciation resulting from the four-vowel combination "uaoa"—no other word in the English language has this particular combination of vowels. (Indeed, even if one takes the "u" to be part of the initial consonant "qu", no other word in English has the vowel sequence "aoa", though it occurs in the place name Paraoa.) Regardless, the name and discovery of Quaoar were publicly announced in October, though Brown had not sought approval of the name by the IAU's Committee on Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN). Quaoar's name was announced before the official numbering of the object, which Brian Marsden—the head of the Minor Planet Center—remarked in 2004 to be a violation of the protocol during the time that the name of —another large trans-Neptunian object discovered by Brown—was announced.
50000 Quaoar | Naming
This minor planet was named after Rhoda Barnard (née Calvert), wife of the American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard (1857–1923), who was himself honored with the asteroid 819 Barnardiana. The official naming was published in the journal "Astronomische Nachrichten" in 1922 (AN 215, 471). The was also mentioned in "The Names of the Minor Planets" by Paul Herget in 1955 ().
907 Rhoda | Naming
This minor planet was named by the discoverer Karl Reinmuth. Any reference of its name to a person or occurrence is unknown.
1175 Margo | Naming
This minor planet was named in memory of V. Alexander Nedzel (died 1984), head of MIT Lincoln Laboratory's Aerospace Division and supporter of the "Lincoln Laboratory Earth-Approaching Asteroid Search", presumably a precursor of the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 22 June 1986 ().
3343 Nedzel | Naming
This minor planet was named by the discoverers after David V. Rodrigues (born 1952), an American astronomical lecturer at the Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. He is known for his educational outreach on astronomy to the public and school children, wearing a wizard costume. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 1 May 2003 ().
24626 Astrowizard | Naming
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 14 July 1992 (). As of 2018, it has not been named.
(5258) 1989 AU1 | Numbering and naming
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 8 March 1993 (). As of 2018, it has not been named.
(5476) 1989 TO11 | Numbering and naming
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 30 August 2004. As of 2018, it has not been named.
(89830) 2002 CE | Numbering and naming
This minor planet was named in memory of Italian singer-songwriter Lucio Battisti (1943–1998). In the 1970s, Battisti lived in a small village near Sormano, location of the discovering observatory. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 8 December 1998, three months after his death ().
9115 Battisti | Naming
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 28 October 2004 (). As of 2018, it has not been named.
(91205) 1998 US43 | Numbering and naming
Any reference to a person or occurrence of this minor planet's name is unknown. The name was suggested by German astronomer Gustav Stracke.
1182 Ilona | Naming
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 19 January 1992 (). As of 2018, it has not been named.
(5025) 1986 TS6 | Numbering and naming
This minor planet was named in honor of JPL engineer Larry E. Hovland (b. 1947), who oversees the electronics of the Raman spectrometer and the Mars 2005 optical navigation camera. He helped the discoverer to transition from photographic to electronic detection methods. The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 9 May 2001 ().
9069 Hovland | Naming
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 26 July 2000 (). As of 2018, it has not been named.
(15977) 1998 MA11 | Numbering and naming
In May 2018, astrophysicist Ethan Siegel publicly advocated for a space probe mission to study Sedna as it approaches perihelion. Siegel characterized Sedna as an attractive target due to its status as a possible inner Oort cloud object. Because of Sedna's long orbital period, "we will not get the opportunity to study it this close to the Sun for many millennia again." Such a mission could be facilitated by Dual-Stage 4-Grid ion thrusters that might cut cruise times considerably if powered, for example, by a fusion reactor.
90377 Sedna | Exploration
As of 2017, this minor planet remains unnamed.
(416151) 2002 RQ25 | Naming
The Minor Planet Center classifies the trans-Neptunian object 90377 Sedna as a scattered-disc object. Its discoverer Michael E. Brown has suggested instead that it should be considered an inner Oort-cloud object rather than a member of the scattered disc, because, with a perihelion distance of 76 AU, it is too remote to be affected by the gravitational attraction of the outer planets. Sedna is not the only such object: (discovered before Sedna) and have a perihelion too far away from Neptune to be influenced by it. This led to a discussion among astronomers about a new minor planet set, called the "extended scattered disc" (E-SDO).
Scattered disc | Detached objects
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 6 April 2012. As of 2018, it has not been named.
(323137) 2003 BM80 | Numbering and naming
This minor planet was named by the first discoverer after the second, Giovanni de Sanctis (born 1949), an Italian astronomer at the Observatory of Turin, who closely collaborated with Henri Debehogne at the European Southern Observatory in La Silla, Chile, during the early 1980s. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 22 June 1986 ().
3268 De Sanctis | Naming
This minor planet was numbered on 19 September 1994 (). As of 2018, it has not been named.
(6090) 1989 DJ | Numbering and naming
This minor planet was named after Russian astronomer from Moscow, Albina Serova, who is a friend of the discoverer. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 18 September 1986 ().
2697 Albina | Naming
This minor planet was named after American astronomer Jean Mueller (b. 1950), discoverer of minor planets, comets and supernovae during the course of the Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS II) using the Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 12 December 1989 ().
4031 Mueller | Naming
This minor planet was named by the discoverer after his professor Vojislav Mišković (1892–1976), first director of the new Belgrade Observatory and founder of the Astronomical Institute at SANU. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 7 March 1985 ().
2348 Michkovitch | Naming
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 9 December 1992 (). As of 2018, it has not been named.
(5407) 1992 AX | Naming
This minor planet was named in honor of American planetary scientist Daniel D. Durda, who has researched the generation, evolution, size distribution and fragmentation of minor planets, resulting in the formation of minor-planet moons. He was especially interested in (243) Ida I Dactyl when he was member of the "Galileo" mission team. Daniel Durda is also a pilot and an artist of astronomical paintings. In 2015, he was awarded the Carl Sagan Medal for "communicating the wonder of planetary science through visual artistry". The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 8 August 1998 ().
6141 Durda | Naming
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 9 March 2001 (). As of 2018, it has not been named.
(23135) 2000 AN146 | Numbering and naming
If Sedna were captured from another planetary system that rotated in the same direction as the Solar System, then all of its population would have orbits on relatively low inclinations and have semi-major axes ranging from 100 to 500 AU. If it rotated in the opposite direction, then two populations would form, one with low and one with high inclinations. The perturbations from passing stars would produce a wide variety of perihelia and inclinations, each dependent on the number and angle of such encounters. Acquiring a larger sample of such objects would help in determining which scenario is most likely.
90377 Sedna | Population
It was discovered in 2005 at the MMT Observatory of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), by astronomers Warren Brown, Margaret J. Geller, Scott J. Kenyon and Michael J. Kurtz.
SDSS J090745.0+024507 | Introduction
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 5 July 2001. As of 2018, it has not been named.
(26308) 1998 SM165 | Numbering and naming
This minor planet was after Nina Nikolaevna Neujmina (1877–1956), mathematician and sister of Russian discoverer Grigory Neujmin.
779 Nina | Naming
This minor planet was numbered on 9 September 1995 (). As of 2018, it has not been named.
(6545) 1986 TR6 | Numbering and naming
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 5 December 2006. , it has not been named.
(136617) 1994 CC | Numbering and naming
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 2 February 1999. As of 2018, it has not been named.
(9928) 1981 WE9 | Numbering and naming
Other people also confuse Nibiru with Sedna (90377 Sedna) or Eris (136199 Eris), trans-Neptunian objects discovered by Mike Brown in 2003 and 2005 respectively. However, despite having been described as a "tenth planet" in an early NASA press release, Eris (then known only as 2003 UB) is now classified as a dwarf planet. Only slightly more massive than Pluto, Eris has a well-determined orbit that never takes it closer to the Earth than . Sedna is slightly smaller than Pluto, and never comes closer to Earth than . Mike Brown believes the confusion results from both the real Sedna and the imaginary Nibiru having extremely elliptical orbits.
Nibiru cataclysm | Sedna or Eris
This minor planet was named after Lucy-Ann McFadden (born 1952), a planetary scientist at the University of Maryland at the time of naming. Her research included the similarities between the spectra of meteorites and near-Earth objects. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 14 April 1987 ().
3066 McFadden | Naming
This minor planet was named after Russian astronomer Boris Gerasimovich (1889–1937), professor at the National University of Kharkiv and director of the Pulkovo Observatory near Saint Petersburg, Russia. He is also honored by a lunar crater "Gerasimovich". The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 1 June 1980 ().
2126 Gerasimovich | Naming
, provisional designation , is an stony asteroid of the Apollo group, classified as near-Earth object and potentially hazardous asteroid, approximately 1 kilometer in diameter. It was discovered on 1 May 1989, by American astronomer Eleanor Helin at the U.S. Palomar Observatory in California.
(7335) 1989 JA | Introduction
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 13 September 2000, after its orbit had sufficiently been secured (). As of 2018, it has not been named.
(16882) 1998 BO13 | Numbering and naming