Dictionary of Minor Planet Names: Addendum to 6th Edition: 2012-2014

406 Pages·2015·7.24 MB·English

by  Lutz D. Schmadel (auth.)

lutz d. schmadel
dictionary
of minor
planet names
Addendum to 6th Edition:
2012–2014
123
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names — Addendum 2012–2014
(21) Lutetia at closest approach
Image of (21) Lutetia captured by Rosetta on July, 10 2010
Asteroid (21) Lutetia has been revealed as a battered world of many craters. ESA’s Rosetta mission has returned
the first close-up images of the asteroid showing it is most probably a primitive survivor from the violent birth of
the Solar System.
The flyby was a spectacular success with Rosetta performing faultlessly. Closest approach took place at 18:10
CEST, at a distance of 3162 km.
The images show that (21) Lutetia is heavily cratered, having suffered many impacts during its 4.5 billion years of
existence. As Rosetta drew close, a giant bowl-shaped depression stretching across much of the asteroid rotated
into view. The images confirm that (21) Lutetia is an elongated body, with its longest side around 130km.
The pictures come from Rosetta’s OSIRIS instrument, which combines a wide angle and a narrow angle camera.
At closest approach, details down to a scale of 60 m can be seen over the entire surface of (21) Lutetia.
Image credit: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
Id 22 4598
Released 10/07/2010 11:20 pm
Internet: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_triumphs_at_asteroid_Lutetia
Image: http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2010/07/Lutetia_at_closest_approach
Lutz D. Schmadel
Dictionary
of
Minor Planet Names
Addendum to Sixth Edition: 2012–2014
Prepared on Behalf of Commission 20
Under the Auspices
of the International Astronomical Union
Dr. Lutz D. Schmadel
Astronomisches Rechen-Institut
am Zentrum fuer Astronomie der
Universitaet Heidelberg
Moenchhofstr. 12-14
DE-69120 Heidelberg
Germany
[email protected]
Typesetting: Camera-ready by theauthor using TEXmacros by GernotBurkhardt.

ISBN 978-3-319-17676-5 ISBN 978-3-319-17677-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-17677-2

L ibrary of Congress Control Number: 2015939992

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Foreword
to the Sixth Edition
How does one identify celestial objects? In ancient a name. Designations for minor planets were intro-
times, people looked up at the sky, saw patterns in duced in 1852, when newly discovered planets re-
the fixed distribution of stars and gave names to ceivedasequentialnumber. Therapidassignmentof
those patterns (constellations). These early astron- newnumberscausedanumberofsituationswherea
omers also named the brighter stars, as well as the newnumberwasassignedtoaknownobjectthathad
handfulofnon-fixed“stars”(theplanets)thatmoved become lost. The use of photography as a discovery
across the sky. The ancient Egyptians painted star toolinthelastdecadeofthe19thcenturyledtothe
charts on sarcophagi and on tomb ceilings, and the concept of provisional designations. Objects would
ancient Sumerians recorded the names of their con- receiveaprovisionaldesignationupondiscoveryand
stellations on clay tablets. The earliest known cat- would receive a number only when their orbits were
alogues of stars come from the Babylonians in the judged to be reliable enough to allow unambiguous
second millenium BCE. Chinese astronomers were future identification. Once numbered, objects could
active observers of the sky, producing star charts be named.
and catalogues, as well as providing many of the
The assignment of names to numbered minor plan-
earliest records of cometary appearances. A num-
etscontinues. Thenamesarenottheprincipalform
berofGreekandRomanastronomersproducedstar
of identification for minor planets, but discoverers
catalogues. The best known is probably Claudius
like to name their discoveries, so the tradition con-
Ptolemy’s Almagest, based heavily on a catalogue
tinues. As recently as 1990, as many as 80% of the
created by Hipparchus about two centuries earlier,
4,357numberedminorplanetshadnames. However,
whichlisted1,022stars. DuringEurope’sDarkAges,
therateofnumberingsincethenhasfaroutstripped
Islamic astronomers produced many star catalogues
the rate of naming. Today, with over 300,000 num-
and many stars still retain their Arabic names. One
beredminorplanets,onlyabout5%arenamed. This
common feature of these early catalogues was the
should not be viewed as a failure or problem, since
useofnamesordescriptionsofthelocationwithina
it is not required that every numbered minor planet
constellation to identify stars.
should have a name.
Designations for stars, as opposed to names or de- Since the 2000 General Assembly, the DMPN has
scriptions, were introduced in Johann Bayer’s Ura- been an official publication of the International As-
nometria (1603), where he labelled each listed star tronomical Union. This sixth edition, like its prede-
with a Greek letter followed by the genitive case of cessors,hasbeenproducedbyLutzD.Schmadeland
theconstellationinwhichitlay. Theletterswereas- his team. The IAU delegates responsibility for ap-
signed,roughly,indecreasingorderofbrightest: the provingnewnamestothe15-memberCommitteeon
brightest star in Cygnus is α Cygni. For constella- Small Body Nomenclature, a committee of IAU Di-
tionswherethereweremorestarsthantheavailable vision III through its Commission 20. Although the
24 Greek letters, Bayer used lower-case Roman let- proposers of each name are responsible for submit-
ters, then capital Roman letters. A second designa- ting the initial versions of the citations, significant
tionsystemwasintroducedinJohnFlamsteed’sHis- editing is often required to correct spelling or gram-
toriacoelestisBrittanica(1725),usingnumeralswith matical mistakes, to trim the citation length to the
the genitive constellation name: e.g., 61 Cygni. In required four-printed-line limit in the Minor Planet
modern catalogues, which can contain more one bil- Circulars, or (in extreme cases) to rewrite the ci-
lionobjects,designationsareusedexclusively. There tations from scratch. Some of this editing work is
are simply too many objects listed in modern cata- undertaken at the Minor Planet Center before the
logues to use names or descriptions. Designations names are sent to the CSBN and some is done by
may be assigned by the catalogue compilers or may CSBN members during the approval process. It is
bederivedfromthepublishedpositionsofthelisted worth noting that there is an art to writing a name
stars. citationthatfewastronomersseemtohavemastered.
Inabroadsense,theDMPNisacollaborativeeffort
This natural evolution of stellar nomenclature from by many individuals, but one must not underesti-
names to designations has been reflected in minor- mate the amount of work undertaken by Lutz D.
planet nomenclature. When the first minor plan- Schmadel in preparing this publication. The astro-
ets were discovered in the first half of the 19th cen- nomical community owes him a large debt of grati-
tury, each newly discovered object quickly acquired tude.
Cambridge, MA, January 2012 Gareth V. Williams
Associate Director
IAU Minor Planet Center

Preface
TheDictionaryofMinorPlanetNames(DMPN)was Vol. Time numbered named ratio
first published in 1991, elucidating the meaning of 1 Dec. 1991 5 012 3 957 79.0
the named and numbered minor planets. Consecu-
2 Sep. 1993 5 655 4 512 79.8
tively, five further editions and two addenda of this
3 June 1996 7 041 5 252 74.6
monograph followed in roughly three-year intervals
1993, 1996, 1999, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2012 in ac- 4 June 1999 10 666 6 730 63.1
cord with the time of IAU General Assemblies. Ac- 5 Jan. 2003 52 224 10 038 19.2
cording to a resolution of IAU Division III of the
5-1 Mar. 2006 120 437 12 804 10.6
2000ManchesterGeneralAssemblyDMPNattained
5-2 Apr. 2009 207 942 15 056 7.2
the status of an official IAU publication. This Ad-
dendum2012–2014tothe6th editiononlyupdates 6 Feb. 2012 310 376 16 863 5.4
afascinatingstoryofaratherbreathtakingevolution 6-1 Jan. 2015 422 636 19 044 4.5
and completes our common effort of a quarter of a
century.
information again. It goes without saying that the
Starting from rather low numbers of numbered and fundamental structure of DMPN has been left un-
namedminorplanetsweexperiencedanoverwhelm- changed. Asamatteroffactwealwaysareinneedof
ingaccumulationwhichissummarizedinthefollow- informationconcerning,forexample,lifedataand/or
ing table. These figures demonstrate that the count explanationofnameinitials. Ourcolleaguesarekind-
of numbered objects has been multiplied by more ly asked for their support.
thanafactorof84duringthelast25years! Theevo-
ApublicationlikeDMPNneedsthesupportanden-
lution of thecountof new names, however, retarded
couragement ofmany persons. I owea greatdebt of
by a factor of not even 5. The extremely dropped
gratitude to my colleague Gernot Burkhardt for his
down percentage of named planets should stimulate
indefatigable support with the huge number-crun-
alldiscoverersofalreadynumberedminorplanetsto
ching and programming and his everlasting engage-
proposenewnamesinordertoproduceamuchlarger
mentinthepreparationofalleditionsoftheDMPN
portionofuniquenumber/namecombinationswhich
during the last 25 years. The kind support by the
exclude any errors in the literature.
IAU General Secretaries is highly appreciated. Our
Thesixthedition(andallherpredecessors)servedas gratitudeisalsoduetoRamonKhannaandhisteam
thebasicsurvey,whichisupdatedbythisaddendum. from Springer-Verlag. I thank Gareth V. Williams,
Itcontainsnotonlythenewlypublishednamesfrom AssociateDirectoroftheMinorPlanetCenterforhis
the period 2012-2014 but also numerous corrections helpfulpieceofadvice. Finally,Iwouldliketothank
and amendments to earlier editions. The complete my wife Anna for her support and varied assistance
work is a thoroughly revised data collection and ev- which permitted me to realize this labour through
ery effort has been made to check and/or correct all decades.
Heidelberg, February 2015 Lutz D. Schmadel