Meanings of minor-planet names: 177001–178000
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As minor planet discoveries are confirmed, they are given a permanent number by the IAU's Minor Planet Center (MPC), and the discoverers can then submit names for them, following the IAU's naming conventions. The list below concerns those minor planets in the specified number-range that have received names, and explains the meanings of those names.
Official naming citations of newly named small Solar System bodies are approved and published in a bulletin by IAU's Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN).[1] Before May 2021, citations were published in MPC's Minor Planet Circulars for many decades.[2] Recent citations can also be found on the JPL Small-Body Database (SBDB).[3] Until his death in 2016, German astronomer Lutz D. Schmadel compiled these citations into the Dictionary of Minor Planet Names (DMP) and regularly updated the collection.[4][5]
Based on Paul Herget's The Names of the Minor Planets,[6] Schmadel also researched the unclear origin of numerous asteroids, most of which had been named prior to World War II. 
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: SBDB New namings may only be added to this list below after official publication as the preannouncement of names is condemned.[7] The WGSBN publishes a comprehensive guideline for the naming rules of non-cometary small Solar System bodies.[8]
177001–177100
| Named minor planet | Provisional | This minor planet was named for... | Ref · Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|
| 177065 Samuelnoah | 2003 FP7 | Twins Samuel Rodriguez (born 2019) and Noah Rodriguez (born 2019) are great-grandchildren of James Whitney Young, who discovered this minor planet. | JPL · 177065 |
177101–177200
| Named minor planet | Provisional | This minor planet was named for... | Ref · Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|
| 177120 Ocampo Uría | 2003 GZ51 | Adriana Ocampo (born 1955) was the NASA Headquarters Program Program Executive for the New Horizons mission to Pluto. | JPL · 177120 |
| 177148 Pätzold | 2003 QJ85 | Martin Pätzold (born 1960), Max Planck Institute, worked as a Science Team Collaborator for radio science for the New Horizons mission to Pluto. | JPL · 177148 |
| 177157 Skoffelza | 2003 SF33 | Elza Skoff (1905–1983), a Hungarian radio announcer at Radio Budapest. | IAU · 177157 |
177201–177300
| Named minor planet | Provisional | This minor planet was named for... | Ref · Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|
| There are no named minor planets in this number range | |||
177301–177400
| Named minor planet | Provisional | This minor planet was named for... | Ref · Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|
| There are no named minor planets in this number range | |||
177401–177500
| Named minor planet | Provisional | This minor planet was named for... | Ref · Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|
| 177415 Queloz | 2004 CK3 | Didier Queloz (born 1966), Swiss astrophysicist at Geneva University known for the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the first extrasolar planet around a main-sequence start | JPL · 177415 |
177501–177600
| Named minor planet | Provisional | This minor planet was named for... | Ref · Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|
| There are no named minor planets in this number range | |||
177601–177700
| Named minor planet | Provisional | This minor planet was named for... | Ref · Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|
| 177625 Dembicky | 2004 JD | Jack M. Dembicky (born 1966) was the telescope operations specialist, and is now the support astronomer at New Mexico's Apache Point Observatory. He was the lead 2MASS telescope operator at the F. L. Whipple Observatory at Mount Hopkins, AZ (1997–2000). He has an M.S. in physics (1996) from Wichita State University. | IAU · 177625 |
| 177659 Paolacel | 2005 CE77 | Paola Celletti (born 1956), Italian architect from the University of Rome "La Sapienza". She has been an amateur astronomer and involved in public outreach. | JPL · 177659 |
| 177667 Schieven | 2005 EV37 | Gerald Henry Moriarty Schieven (born 1958) is a Canadian astronomer who obtained his PhD at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Gerald was President of the RASC London Centre in 1980. He has worked at JPL, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and the Herzberg Millimetre Astronomy Group. | IAU · 177667 |
177701–177800
| Named minor planet | Provisional | This minor planet was named for... | Ref · Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|
| 177722 Pelletier | 2005 GJ205 | Frederic J. Pelletier (born 1974), a senior engineer at KinetX, who worked as Navigation Lead for the New Horizons mission to Pluto | JPL · 177722 |
| 177770 Saulanwu | 2005 JE163 | Sau Lan Wu (b. 1940s) is a Chinese-American particle physicist. She is renowned for her integral leadership and participation in the discoveries of the charm quark, the [gluon], and the Higgs boson. Wu is the Enrico Fermi Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an experimentalist at CERN. | JPL · 177770 |
| 177771 Bretz | 2005 JA165 | Harley “J Harlen” Bretz (1882–1981) was an American geologist. His fieldwork of the Channeled Scablands on the Columbia River Plateau led him to propose that the landscape resulted from cataclysmic flooding. His theory has been vindicated by decades of evidence and the discovery of the ancient glacial Lake Missoula as the flood source. | IAU · 177771 |
177801–177900
| Named minor planet | Provisional | This minor planet was named for... | Ref · Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|
| 177830 Rubenhagen | 2005 NL44 | David Alfred Rubenhagen (b. 1959), a Canadian amateur astronomer. | IAU · 177830 |
| 177853 Lumezzane | 2005 PQ3 | Lumezzane, a small town in northern Italy, near Brescia | JPL · 177853 |
| 177866 Barrau | 2005 QL28 | Aurélien Barrau (born 1973), French physicist and philosopher. | JPL · 177866 |
177901–178000
| Named minor planet | Provisional | This minor planet was named for... | Ref · Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|
| 177967 Chouchihkang | 2006 PY32 | Chih-Kang Chou (born 1935), a Chinese-born astronomer, who taught and conducted research in astronomy at the National Central University in Taiwan for 30 years. | JPL · 177967 |
| 177982 Popilnia | 2006 QE34 | Popilnia Raion, a district of Zhytomyr Oblast, located in northwestern Ukrainian, and motherland of poet Maksym Rylsky | JPL · 177982 |