Lists of minor planets
numerically sorted list of near-Earth asteroids, Mars-crossers, main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans, and distant minor planets in the Solar System
The following is a list of minor planets in ascending numerical order. Minor planets are small bodies in the Solar System: asteroids, distant objects, and dwarf planets, but not comets. As of 2022, the vast majority (97.3%) are asteroids from the asteroid belt. Their discoveries are certified by the Minor Planet Center, which assigns them numbers on behalf of the International Astronomical Union. Every year, the Center publishes thousands of newly numbered minor planets in its Minor Planet Circulars (see index). As of May 2026, the 895,910 numbered minor planets made up more than half of the 1,547,929 observed small Solar System bodies, of which the rest were unnumbered minor planets and comets.
The catalog's first object is 1 Ceres, discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801, while its best-known entry is Pluto, listed as 134340 Pluto. Both are among the 3% of numbered minor planets with names, mostly of people, places, and figures from mythology and fiction. (4596) 1981 QB and 875150 Burkegaffneyobs are currently the lowest-numbered unnamed and highest-numbered named minor planets, respectively.
There are more than a thousand minor-planet discoverers observing from a growing list of registered observatories.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Lists of minor planets” as numerically sorted list of near-Earth asteroids, Mars-crossers, main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans, and distant minor planets in the Solar System. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as numerically sorted list of near-Earth asteroids, Mars-crossers, main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans, and distant minor planets in the Solar System. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q37651. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2022, 2026, 1801 and 1981.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lists of minor planets” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.