minor planet
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AI overview
A minor planet is a small rocky object that orbits directly around the Sun, but doesn't qualify as either a planet or a comet. Studying minor planets helps scientists understand the composition and history of our solar system, and tracking their orbits is important for detecting any that might pose a collision risk to Earth.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term minor planet, but that year's meeting reclassified minor planets and comets into small Solar System bodies (SSSBs) and dwarf planets, including into the respective categories comets and Pluto, which were generally not considered minor planets. In contrast to the eight official planets of the Solar System, all minor planets fail to clear their orbital neighborhood.
Minor planets include asteroids (near-Earth objects, Earth trojans, Mars trojans, Mars-crossers, main-belt asteroids and Jupiter trojans), as well as distant minor planets (Uranus trojans, Neptune trojans, centaurs and trans-Neptunian objects), most of which reside in the Kuiper belt and the scattered disc. As of February 2026, there are 1,520,238 known objects, divided into 887,103 numbered, with only one of them recognized as a dwarf planet (secured discoveries) and 633,135 unnumbered minor planets, with only five of those officially recognized as a dwarf planet.