Re: [guide-user] Missing Hermes

Bill J Gray Nov 5, 2003

Hi Dave,

As Arild and Gary have suggested... this is a somewhat odd and
non-intuitive case. Hermes is the only case (in recent decades,
anyway) of a non-numbered, but named, asteroid. The way things
are supposed to go is that an asteroid gets a provisional designation
(such as 1937 UB), then a permanent number, and _then_ the discoverer
proposes a name for the object.

My guess would be that in this instance, MPC's code doesn't
recognize the idea of non-numbered, but named, asteroids. So it
just gives the provisional designation and omits "Hermes".

The object can be found in the "unusual" file only (it's not a
comet, not very bright, not at all distant, etc... but it's
certainly "unusual"!) It's actually listed _twice_ in that file,
with almost-identical data (the second version differs from the
first in the ascending node, in the last digit... it doesn't make
any practical difference as far as Guide is concerned.)

-- Bill