{"id":94570,"date":"2026-03-24T14:03:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T08:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=94570"},"modified":"2026-03-24T14:41:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T09:11:30","slug":"minor-planet-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/minor-planet-centre\/","title":{"rendered":"Minor Planet Centre"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Minor Planet Centre Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, the Minor Planet Centre (MPC) announced 15 new moons had been found, four around Jupiter and 11 around Saturn.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Minor Planet Centre<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the world\u2019s <\/span><b>primary repository<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for all observations of <\/span><b>small bodies in the <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/solar-system\/\" target=\"_blank\">solar system<\/a>.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is Located in <\/span><b>Cambridge, Massachusetts<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory under the International Astronomical Union<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Process<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When astronomers discover a new object, they send their data to the MPC, where experts verify the observations and calculate the object\u2019s orbit.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the discovery is new, the <\/span><b>MPC assigns it an official designation.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Functions of Minor Planet Centre<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It plays a vital role in <\/span><b>tracking asteroids, comets, and the moons of the outer planets<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the MPC\u2019s most critical jobs involves <\/span><b>monitoring near-earth objects<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (NEOs).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0NEOs are space rocks that could potentially threaten the earth.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MPC maintains a large database that allows scientists to predict if and when a rock might come close to the earth.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The MPC also facilitates communication within the global scientific <\/span><b>community by publishing electronic circulars<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that alert researchers to new discoveries or interesting celestial events.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/what-is-the-minor-planet-centre\/article70772062.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minor Planet Centre is the world\u2019s primary repository for all observations of small bodies in the solar system. Read more about Minor Planet Centre, Meaning, Process, Functions, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":94575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6331,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-94570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-minor-planet-centre","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94570"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94644,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94570\/revisions\/94644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}