Astronomical naming conventions in the context of "Plutino"

Provisional designation 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 The provisional designation is usually superseded by a permanent designation once a reliable orbit has been calculated. As of 2019, approximately 47% of the more than 1,100,000 known minor planets remain provisionally designated, as hundreds of thousands have been discovered in the last two decades. The modern system is overseen by the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union.

Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 (formally designated D/1993 F2) was a comet that broke apart in July 1992 and collided with Jupiter in July 1994, providing the first direct observation of an extraterrestrial collision of Solar System objects. This generated a large amount of coverage in the popular media, and the comet was closely observed by astronomers worldwide. The collision provided new information about Jupiter and highlighted its possible role in reducing space debris in the inner Solar System.

The comet was discovered by astronomers Carolyn and Eugene M. Shoemaker, and David Levy in 1993. Shoemaker–Levy 9 (SL9) had been captured by Jupiter and was orbiting the planet at the time. It was located on the night of March 24 in two photographs taken with the 46 cm (18 in) Schmidt telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California. It was the first active comet observed to be orbiting a planet, and had probably been captured by Jupiter around 20 to 30 years earlier.

The following is a collection of lists of asteroids of the Solar System that are exceptional in some way, such as their size or orbit. For the purposes of this article, "asteroid" refers to minor planets out to the orbit of Neptune, and includes the dwarf planet Ceres, the Jupiter trojans and the centaurs, but not trans-Neptunian objects (objects in the Kuiper belt, scattered disc or inner Oort cloud). For a complete list of minor planets in numerical order, see List of minor planets.

Asteroids are given minor planet numbers, but not all minor planets are asteroids. Minor planet numbers are also given to objects of the Kuiper belt, which is similar to the asteroid belt but farther out (around 30–60 AU). Asteroids are mostly between 2–3 AU from the Sun or at the orbit of Jupiter, 5 AU from the Sun. Comets are not typically included under minor planet numbers, and have their own naming conventions.

As minor planet discoveries are confirmed, they are given a permanent number by the IAU's Minor Planet Center (MPC), and the discoverers can then submit names for them, following the IAU's naming conventions. The list below concerns those minor planets in the specified number-range that have received names, and explains the meanings of those names.

Official naming citations of newly named small Solar System bodies are approved and published in a bulletin by IAU's Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN). Before May 2021, citations were published in MPC's Minor Planet Circulars for many decades. Recent citations can also be found on the JPL Small-Body Database (SBDB). Until his death in 2016, German astronomer Lutz D. Schmadel compiled these citations into the Dictionary of Minor Planet Names (DMP) and regularly updated the collection.