15760 Albion


15760 Albion, provisional designation , was the first trans-Neptunian object to be discovered after Pluto and Charon. Measuring about 108–167 kilometres in diameter, it was discovered in 1992 by David C. Jewitt and Jane X. Luu at the Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii. After the discovery, they dubbed the object ‘Smiley’ and it was shortly hailed as the tenth planet by the press. It is a "cold" classical Kuiper belt object and gave rise to the name cubewano for this kind of object, after the portion of its designation. Decoding its provisional designation, "QB1" reveals that it was the 27th object found in the second half of August of that year. As of January 2018, over 2,400 further objects have been found beyond Neptune, a majority of which are classical Kuiper belt objects. It was named after Albion from William Blake's mythology.

Naming

This minor planet was named after Albion from the complex mythology of English poet and painter William Blake. Albion is the island-dwelling primeval man whose division resulted into The Four Zoas: Urizen, Tharmas, Luvah/Orc and Urthona/Los. The name Albion itself derives from the ancient and mythological name of Britain. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 31 January 2018.
The discoverers suggested the name "Smiley" for, but the name was already used for an asteroid 1613 Smiley, named after the American astronomer Charles Hugh Smiley. It has received the number 15760 and remained unnamed until January 2018.

Legacy

The next year in 1993, objects in similar orbits were found including 1993 SB, 1993 SC, 1993 FW, and 1993 RO.
Over one thousand bodies were found the Kuiper belt between orbiting between about 30-50 AU from the Sun in the twenty years, after finding 1992 QB1, showing a vast belt of bodies more than just Pluto and Albion. By 2018, over 2000 Kuiper belts objects were discovered.