Major Minor Planets

Abstract

Vesta, the third-largest known asteroid in our solar system, is the only asteroid that can be seen with the naked eye. Vesta is smaller than Ceres and Pallas, the first- and second-largest asteroids, respectively, but its reflective surface allows it to be seen occasionally, without the aid of a telescope, in the nighttime sky. The rest of the known asteroids can only be seen with a scope or as a smudge on a photographic plate—their mere size living up to their “minor planets” label.

Then I felt like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken.

John Keats

Eyeing the Heavens