Minor Planets facts

While investigating facts about Minor Planets Crossword Clue and Minor Planets In Our Solar System, I found out little known, but curios details like:

Earth is being shadowed by a minor planet called 2010 TK7, a 300 meter diameter trojan asteroid that orbits the sun in a spiral pattern every 365.3 days, 60° ahead of Earth's track through space. It has a gravitational force 1/20000 that of Earth and was only discovered in 2010.

how many minor planets are there?

There is a minor planet in our solar system named Chariklo with two rings, about 3km and 7km wide.

What are minor planets called?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what are also known as minor planets. Here are 21 of the best facts about Minor Planets Name and Minor Planets Are Called I managed to collect.

what are minor planets?

1. A minor planet was named after Miguel Hidalgo called 944 Hidalgo.

2. Within our solar system are asteroids, which are minor planets circling the sun in an asteroid belt.

3. There is a minor planet between Saturn and Uranus, found in 1977 and named Chiron

4. There are 508,765 numbered minor planets in our solar system, and 5 million more are expected to be found in the next 10 years.

5. Frank Zappa has a minor planet named after him.

6. 4 Vesta" is a minor planet located in the asteroid belt. It accounts for 9% of the total mass in the asteroid belt and has the tallest mountain in the solar system. Its Rheasilvia impact crater is 19 km (11.8mi) deep with a central peak 23km (14.3 mi) above the surface of the crater.

7. An asteroid was named after "Les Misérables" character Jean Valjean. Its minor-planet-designation number: 24601.

8. All four members of the Beatles have an individual minor planet named after them.

9. Minor planets are numbered according to the date they were discovered - or in one case, reclassified. Ceres is Minor Planet #1. Pluto is #134340.

10. There's a minor planet named after Lindsey Stirling.

Why are asteroids sometimes called minor planets?

You can easily fact check why is it called minor planets by examining the linked well-known sources.

Asteroids and other minor planets can have moons. As it turns out, 357 minor planets in the solar system are known to have tiny companions.

In honor of Astrid Lindgren, Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh named a minor planet after her. It was discovered in 1978 and is called 3204 Lindgren.

Centaurs are small celestial bodies or minor planets that orbit the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune that have unstable orbits and act like asteroids or comets. - source

The first person on earth to make a trillion dollars will likely be an asteroid miner, someone who exploits raw materials from asteroids, comets, and minor planets, both Elon Musk & Jeff Bezos are heavily invested the field - source

When does minor league baseball start?

An asteroid orbiting in the asteroid belt was named after Wikipedia bearing the name 274301 Wikipedia and was published in the Minor Planet Circular of January 27, 2013

How do minor planets differ from major planets?

There is a minor planet named after Brad Pitt. (Ctrl+F Bradpitt)

Chariklo, the largest and first minor planet of the outer solar system that has two orbiting rings

There is a planet called 2244 Tesla named after Nikola Tesla. The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 7 March 1985.