What is the purpose of the Minor Planet Center?

The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is an international organization responsible for collecting observations of natural moons, asteroids, comets, and other small bodies in the Solar System. Under the authority of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the MPC maintains and publishes information on the most up-to-date observations of these Solar System objects and their orbits.

It was established by the IAU at Cincinnati Observatory in 1947, and moved to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, which is part of the Center for Astrophysics along with the Harvard College Observatory, in 1978. It's sponsored by a grant from NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations program.

Along with the major planets (Earth, Jupiter, etc.), the Solar System is home to many small bodies, including asteroids, comets, Kuiper Belt objects such as Pluto, and its satellites. These small bodies are sometimes difficult to observe due to their size, low brightness, and distance from Earth. Determining their orbits precisely is often a challenge, since some of them change over time due to gravitational pushes from the planets or from the Sun heating their surfaces.

The MPC collects observational data from professional and amateur astronomers, recording the discoverer and name of each object. Through 2023, the MPC has data on more than 700,000 minor planets, including more than 18,000 Near-Earth Objects. All MPC data is available to the general public via the website.