List of unnumbered minor planets

The following is a list of unnumbered minor planets in chronological order of their principal provisional designation. Contrary to their numbered counterparts, unnumbered minor planets have a poorly determined orbit due to insufficient observational data. This also includes lost minor planets which have not been observed for many years, or even decades. As of March 2026, the Minor Planet Center (MPC) accounts for 632,416 unnumbered minor planets which represent 42% of the overall minor planet population. Unnumbered minor planets can be further divided into 129,103 single-opposition objects with short observation arcs, prone to mismatch and loss, and 547,652 objects that have been observed multiple times during opposition, when astrometric conditions are most favorable. The JPL Small-Body Database gives a running total of 676,786 unnumbered minor planets.

The tables below contain 113 objects with a principal designation assigned between 1927 and 1994. Additional partial lists cover the period from 1995 to 2004. Unnumbered minor planets detected after 2004 are not listed due to their large number. The orbital uncertainty parameter (U) ranges from low ("0") to very high ("9"). For some single-opposition objects no numeric uncertainty is given ("–"), with "E" indicating an estimated, rather than determined orbital eccentricity. Furthermore, a color code is used to indicate a body's basic dynamical classification, with additional information given in columns "class" and "description and notes" (especially for near-Earth objects, Jupiter trojans and distant objects). If available, mean diameters are taken from the latest NEOWISE publication, or, if not available, estimated based on an object's absolute magnitude and displayed in italics.

In the Minor Planet Circular from July 2018, the MPC announced that changes in their data processing pipeline will enable numberings to occur more frequently. It is stated that the new method will clear the backlog of unnumbered minor planets with an already well-established orbit without changing the criteria for numbering. Previously, this was not possible because of the difficulty of determining who was the discoverer. Despite this announcement, however, the total of unnumbered minor planets has since significantly increased rather than decreased.

2001

2002

2003

2004

The year of principal provisional designation for most unnumbered minor planets listed on Wikipedia is 2004 or earlier (see § Statistics). Later discoveries are not listed in any of the partial lists (§ 1995–2004) due to their large number and frequent changes. New partial lists may be created in the future, as additional observations ultimately lead to new numberings and to fewer unnumbered bodies.

• Lists of astronomical objects
• List of unnumbered trans-Neptunian objects