IAU: WG Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN)

IAU logo

 Contact

The WGSBN can be contacted at contact@wgsbn-iau.org.

Problems with the website should be reported to secretary@wgsbn-iau.org.

 Rotating Members Interest Form

The form for IAU members to register interest in becoming Rotating Members of the WGSBN in future years is now available.

 Name Proposal Link

Discoverers can use this link to access the name proposal site. Registration is required to access the site. Discoverers who require access should request access.

 Support This Site

Information on how you can support the operation of this website.

 Naming Guidelines

Comet Naming Guidelines
Minor Planet Naming Guidelines
      (Translations)

 Members

There are 15 members of the WGSBN, 11 of whom are voting members. The other four members, who are ex-officio, are representatives for the IAU WG Planetary System Nomenclature and the Minor Planet Center, as well as the IAU President and General Secretary.

The current members of the WGSBN are listed below:

 Statistics

There are currently 24836 named minor planets.

The WGSBN is a Working Group (WG) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and is responsible for assigning names to minor planets and comets. It is a functional WG, which means that it exists beyond the regular three-year lifespan of IAU WGs.

 News
 

The six most recent news items are listed below. The complete archive of news items is here.

 July 19: Information on the Checking Discovery Circumstances Process
 

Some information is now available on the process of checking the discovery circumstances for the numbered minor planet subject to the "new" rules for discovery credit.

 July 15: WGSBN Bulletin 4, #10 Issued
 

 July 1: WGSBN Bulletin 4, #9 Issued
 

 June 10: WGSBN Bulletin 4, #8 Issued
 

 May 27: First Draft of Document Describing How To Use the New Submission Site
 

 May 26: The New Submission/Voting Site Is Active
 

 Sign Up For New Bulletin Alerts
 

Enter an e-mail address to receive notifications of the availability of new issues of the WGSBN Bulletin.

You will receive a message at the offered e-mail address containing a link that you must click in order to activate or cancel your subscription.

 WGSBN Bulletins
 

Current and past issues of the WGSBN Bulletin are available below, as well as on the IAU website (note that the dates displayed on the IAU page are the dates they were posted there, not [necessarily] when they were published).

The latest issue is here and links to older issues are here.

For convenience, links to the issues from the most recent volume are listed below:

 Data Files
 

Links to JSON files associated with each WGSBN Bulletin are available below.

The latest set of files are here (UTF-8 only) or here (UTF-8 + HTML), and links to older files are here.

For convenience, links to the files from the most recent volume are listed below:

 Corrigenda Files
 

Links to JSON files associated with corrigenda for the errata listed in the WGSBN Bulletin are available below.

The latest file is here and links to older files are here.

For convenience, links to the most recent corrigenda files are listed below:

 Documentation
 

Information on the format and information content of the data files on the WG's website is available.

This page also contains links to various WG documents involving nomenclature issues.

 Problem E-Mail Addresses
 

Information on problem e-mails in the list of addresses used for notification of new issues is available.

 Printed WGSBN Bulletin Yearbooks
 

Printed yearbooks of the WGSBN Bulletin are published by WGSBN Publishing, a specialist scientific publisher.