In Greek mythology , Tithonus ( / t ɪ ˈ θ oʊ n ə s / or / t aɪ -/ ; Ancient Greek : Τιθωνός , romanized : Tithonos ) was the lover of Eos , Goddess of the Dawn. He was a prince of Troy , the son of King Laomedon by the Naiad Strymo (Στρυμώ). The mythology reflected by the fifth-century vase-painters of Athens envisaged Tithonus as a rhapsode , as attested by the lyre in his hand, on an oinochoe (wine jug) of the Achilles Painter , circa 470–460 BC.
30-449: An asteroid (6998) has been named after Tithonus. Tithonus has been taken by the allegorist to mean ‘a grant of a stretching-out’ (from teinō and ōnė ), a reference to the stretching-out of his life, at Eos’s plea; but it is likely, rather, to have been a masculine form of Eos’s own name, Titonë – from titō , ‘day and onë, ‘queen’ – and to have meant ‘partner of the Queen of Day’. Eos
60-453: A boon. In the account of Hieronymus of Rhodes from the third century BC, the blame is shifted from Eos onto Tithonus, who asked for immortality but not agelessness from his lover, who was then unable to help him otherwise and turned him into a cicada. Propertius wrote that Eos did not forsake Tithonus, old and aged as he was, and would still embrace him and hold him in her arms rather than leaving him deserted in his cold chamber, while cursing
90-480: A human being. There are about 300 programs, surveys and observatories credited as discoverers . Among these, a small group of U.S. programs and surveys actually account for most of all discoveries made so far (see pie chart) . As the total of numbered minor planets is growing by the tens of thousands every year, all statistical figures are constantly changing. In contrast to the Top 10 discoverers displayed in this articles,
120-417: A magnitude-to-diameter conversion, using an assumed albedo derived from the body's orbital parameters or, if available, from a family -specific mean albedo (also see asteroid family table ) . This is an overview of all existing partial lists of numbered minor planets ( LoMP ). Each table stands for 100,000 minor planets, each cell for a specific partial list of 1,000 sequentially numbered bodies. The data
150-518: A mean-diameter, sourced from JPL's SBDB or otherwise calculated estimates in italics ( § Diameter ) , and a reference (Ref) to the corresponding pages at MPC and JPL SBDB. The MPC may credit one or several astronomers, a survey or similar program, or even the observatory site with the discovery. In the first column of the table, an existing stand-alone article is linked in boldface, while (self-)redirects are never linked. Discoverers, discovery site and category are only linked if they differ from
180-411: A minor planet includes a permanent and provisional designation ( § Designation ) , a citation that links to the meanings of minor planet names (only if named), the discovery date, location, and credited discoverers ( § Discovery and § Discoverers ) , a category with a more refined classification than the principal grouping represented by the background color ( § Category ) ,
210-410: A name can be given, replacing the provisional part of the designation, e.g. 4179 Toutatis . (On Misplaced Pages, named minor planets also drop their parentheses.) In modern times, a minor planet receives a sequential number only after it has been observed several times over at least 4 oppositions. Minor planets whose orbits are not (yet) precisely known are known by their provisional designation. This rule
240-759: A trillion minor planets in the Kuiper belt . For minor planets grouped by a particular aspect or property, see § Specific lists . The list of minor planets consists of more than 700 partial lists, each containing 1000 minor planets grouped into 10 tables. The data is sourced from the Minor Planet Center (MPC) and expanded with data from the JPL SBDB (mean-diameter), Johnston's archive (sub-classification) and others (see detailed field descriptions below) . For an overview of all existing partial lists, see § Main index . The information given for
270-437: Is 1 Ceres , discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801, while its best-known entry is Pluto , listed as 134340 Pluto . The vast majority (97.3%) of minor planets are asteroids from the asteroid belt (the catalog uses a color code to indicate a body's dynamical classification ). There are more than a thousand different minor-planet discoverers observing from a growing list of registered observatories . In terms of numbers,
300-539: Is expected that the upcoming survey by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will discover another 5 million minor planets during the next ten years—almost a tenfold increase from current numbers. While all main-belt asteroids with a diameter above 10 km (6.2 mi) have already been discovered, there might be as many as 10 trillion 1 m (3.3 ft)-sized asteroids or larger out to the orbit of Jupiter; and more than
330-741: Is said to have taken Tithonus, from the royal house of Troy, to be her lover. The myth of Eos and Tithonus' love was known to Homer , who wrote that in the morning Eos rose from the bed she shared with Tithonus in order to give her light to mankind. The mytheme of the goddess' mortal lover is an archaic one; when a role for Zeus was inserted, a bitter twist appeared: according to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, when Eos asked Zeus to make Tithonus immortal , she forgot to ask that he be granted eternal youth . Tithonus indeed lived forever, but when loathsome old age pressed full upon him, and he could not move nor lift his limbs, this seemed to her in her heart
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#1732775307531360-535: The Minor Planet Center , which operates on behalf of the International Astronomical Union , publishes thousands of newly numbered minor planets in its Minor Planet Circulars (see index ) . As of October 2024 , there are 740,000 numbered minor planets (secured discoveries) out of a total of 1,386,752 observed small Solar System bodies, with the remainder being unnumbered minor planets and comets. The catalog's first object
390-605: The Palomar Observatory , or G96 for the Mount Lemmon Survey . On numbering, the MPC may directly credit such an observatory or program as the discoverer of an object, rather than one or several astronomers. In this catalog, minor planets are classified into one of 8 principal orbital groups and highlighted with a distinct color. These are: The vast majority of minor planets are evenly distributed between
420-571: The MPC summarizes the total of discoveries somewhat differently, that is by a distinct group of discoverers. For example, bodies discovered in the Palomar–Leiden Survey are directly credited to the program's principal investigators. Observatories, telescopes and surveys that report astrometric observations of small Solar System bodies to the Minor Planet Center receive a numeric or alphanumeric MPC code such as 675 for
450-482: The backs of Etruscan bronze hand-mirrors. 6998 Tithonus The following is a partial list of minor planets , running from minor-planet number 6001 through 7000, inclusive. The primary data for this and other partial lists is based on JPL 's "Small-Body Orbital Elements" and data available from the Minor Planet Center . Critical list information is also provided by the MPC, unless otherwise specified from Lowell Observatory . A detailed description of
480-509: The best counsel: she laid him in a room and put to the shining doors. There he babbles endlessly, and no more has strength at all, such as once he had in his supple limbs. In later tellings, he eventually became a cicada ( tettix ), eternally living, but begging for death to overcome him. In the Olympian system , the "queenly" and "golden-throned" Eos can no longer grant immortality to her lover as Selene had done, but must ask it of Zeus, as
510-421: The end of the twentieth century, large-scale automated asteroid discovery programs such as LINEAR have increased the pace of discoveries so much that the vast majority of minor planets will most likely never receive names. For these reasons, the sequence of numbers only approximately matches the timeline of discovery. In extreme cases, such as lost minor planets, there may be a considerable mismatch: for instance
540-595: The fact that the high-pitched talk of old men was compared to the cicadas' singing, as seen in a passage from the Iliad . In fact the ancient Greeks would use a cicada sitting on a harp as an emblem of music. Eos bore Tithonus two sons, Memnon and Emathion . According to Quintus Smyrnaeus, Memnon was raised by the Hesperides on the coast of Oceanus. According to the historian Diodorus Siculus , Tithonus, who had travelled east from Troy into Assyria and founded Susa ,
570-403: The gods for his cruel fate. This myth might have been used to explain why cicadas were particularly noisy during the early hours of the morning, when the dawn appears in the sky. Sir James George Frazer notes that among ancient Greeks and several other peoples there was a widespread belief that creatures that can shed their skin renew their youth and live forever. It might also be a reference to
600-426: The high-numbered 69230 Hermes was originally discovered in 1937, but it was lost until 2003. Only after it was rediscovered could its orbit be established and a number assigned. The MPC credits more than 1,000 professional and amateur astronomers as discoverers of minor planets . Many of them have discovered only a few minor planets or even just co-discovered a single one. Moreover, a discoverer does not need to be
630-419: The inner (white), central (light-grey) and outer regions (dark grey) of the asteroid belt . The provisional designation for all objects is an uncommon survey designation . After discovery, minor planets generally receive a provisional designation , e.g. 1989 AC , then a leading sequential number in parentheses, e.g. (4179) 1989 AC , turning it into a permanent designation (numbered minor planet). Optionally,
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#1732775307531660-455: The inner-, central and outer parts of the asteroid belt , which are separated by the two Kirkwood gaps at 2.5 and 2.82 AU . Nearly 97.5% of all minor planets are main-belt asteroids (MBA), while Jupiter trojans , Mars-crossing and near-Earth asteroids each account for less than 1% of the overall population. Only a small number of distant minor planets , that is the centaurs and trans-Neptunian objects , have been numbered so far. In
690-536: The list of minor planets diverges from the Discovery Circumstances in the official MPC list. ) 189004 Capys , discovered on 16 October 1977, is the only named minor planet among these five. Its background color indicates that it is a Jupiter trojan (from the Trojan camp at Jupiter's L 5 ), estimated to be approximately 12 kilometers in diameter. All other objects are smaller asteroids from
720-400: The most prolific discoverers are Spacewatch , LINEAR , MLS , NEAT and CSS . There are also 24,975 named minor planets mostly after people, places and figures from mythology and fiction , which account for only 3.4% of all numbered catalog entries. (4596) 1981 QB and 734551 Monin are currently the lowest-numbered unnamed and highest-numbered named minor planets, respectively. It
750-559: The partial lists, table column "category" further refines this principal grouping: If available, a minor planet's mean diameter in meters (m) or kilometers (km) is taken from the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer , which the Small-Body Database has also adopted. Mean diameters are rounded to two significant figures if smaller than 100 kilometers. Estimates are in italics and calculated from
780-665: The preannouncement of names is condemned by the Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union . List of minor planets#Main index The following is a list of numbered minor planets in ascending numerical order. With the exception of comets , minor planets are all small bodies in the Solar System , including asteroids , distant objects and dwarf planets . The catalog consists of hundreds of pages, each containing 1,000 minor planets. Every year,
810-456: The preceding catalog entry. The example above shows five catalog entries from one of the partial lists . All five asteroids were discovered at Palomar Observatory by the Palomar–Leiden survey (PLS). The MPC directly credits the survey's principal investigators, that is, the astronomers Cornelis van Houten , Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld and Tom Gehrels . (This is the only instance where
840-458: The table's columns and additional sources are given on the main page including a complete list of every page in this series, and a statistical break-up on the dynamical classification of minor planets. Also see the summary list of all named bodies in numerical and alphabetical order, and the corresponding naming citations for the number range of this particular list. New namings may only be added to this list after official publication, as
870-511: Was bribed with a golden grapevine to send his son Memnon to fight at Troy against the Greeks. The Tithonus poem is one of the few nearly complete works of the Greek lyric poet Sappho , having been pieced together from fragments discovered over a period of more than a hundred years. Eos (as Thesan ) and Tithonus (as Tinthu or Tinthun) provided a pictorial motif inscribed or cast in low relief on
900-445: Was not necessarily followed in earlier times, and some bodies received a number but subsequently became lost minor planets . The 2000 recovery of 719 Albert , which had been lost for nearly 89 years, eliminated the last numbered lost asteroid. Only after a number is assigned is the minor planet eligible to receive a name. Usually the discoverer has up to 10 years to pick a name; many minor planets now remain unnamed. Especially towards
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