Data Set Overview : This data set includes names, designations, and discovery circumstances for the numbered asteroids, sorted in order of catalog number.  This data set supercedes past versions of both the ASTNAMES and DISCOVER asteroid data sets. It represents an extension of a file originally prepared by Pilcher (1979) [PILCHER1979] for the old Tucson Revised Index of Asteroid Data (TRIAD) and updated in Pilcher (1989) [PILCHER1989] FOR the Asteroids II database. The data for asteroids numbered 4045 and higher were either provided by the Minor Planet Center or extracted from the Minor Planet Circulars, which are published by the Minor Planet Center on behalf of Commission 20 of the International Astronomical Union.  In some cases, an institution or survey is credited with the discovery rather than an individual. No attempt has been made to correct the inconsistencies in the presentation of names (that is, some names are given with initials and some are not), or in the way locations are specified (for example, Pilcher distinguishes between the Lowell Observatory and Anderson Mesa locations in Flagstaff).  Due to the limitations of the ASCII character set, diacritical marks are lost in this machine-readable form.  This version of the data set contains the names, designations, and discovery circumstances for all asteroids numbered as of the 1997 February 22 batch of Minor Planet Circulars, and includes 7508 entries.  References: Pilcher, F. 1979. Circumstances of minor planet discovery. In Asteroids (T. Gehrels, Ed.), pp. 1130-1154. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson. [PILCHER1979]  Pilcher, F. 1989. The circumstances of minor planet discovery. In Asteroids II (R.P. Binzel, T. Gehrels, and M.S. Matthews, Eds.), pp. 1002-1033. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson. [PILCHER1989]  Modification History -------------------- The discover data set is a combination of the data originally provided in the astnames and discover data sets. Astname was first introduced into PDS at the April 1993 asteroid data sets review, and has been updated yearly since that time. Discover was first introduced at the April 1994 asteroid data sets review, and has also been updated yearly since then. At the March 1996 review, for the first time the two data sets were combined into a single data set. Updates of both the astnames and discover components consists of adding entries for asteroids numbered since the last update.   Parameters : The data table includes fields for asteroid catalog number, name, principal provisional designation, discovery date, discovery location, and the name(s) of the discoverer(s).

Review : This data set underwent external peer review on March 24, 1997.   Limitations : Only asteroids numbered as of February 22, 1997 are included.