Provisional designation in astronomy

25,000
50,000
75,000
100,000
125,000
150,000
'90
'95
2000
'05
'10
'15
Yearly number of provisional minor planet designations assigned by the MPC since 1990. As of May 2019, a total of 1,426,477 designations have been assigned since 1869.[1]

Provisional designation in astronomy is the naming convention applied to astronomical objects immediately following their discovery. The provisional designation is usually superseded by a permanent designation once a reliable orbit has been calculated. Approximately 47% of the more than 1,100,000 known minor planets[2] remain provisionally designated, as hundreds of thousands have been discovered in the last two decades.[3]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference MPC-Provisional-Designations was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference MPC-Running-Tallies was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference MPC-statistics was invoked but never defined (see the help page).