List of exceptional asteroids

For the purposes of this article, "asteroid" refers to minor planets out to the orbit of Neptune, and includes the dwarf planet Ceres, the Jupiter trojans and the centaurs, but not trans-Neptunian objects (objects in the Kuiper belt, scattered disc or inner Oort cloud).

Estimating the sizes of asteroids from observations is difficult due to their irregular shapes, varying albedo, and small angular diameter.

[9] Ceres, at a third the estimated mass of the asteroid belt, is half again as massive as the next fifteen put together.

Different sets of astrometric observations lead to different mass determinations; the biggest problem is accounting for the aggregate perturbations caused by all of the smaller asteroids.

Under ideal viewing conditions with very dark skies, a keen eye might be able to also see Ceres, as well as Pallas and Iris at their rare perihelic oppositions.

[16] The following asteroids can all reach an apparent magnitude brighter than or equal to the +8.3 attained by Saturn's moon Titan at its brightest, which was discovered 145 years before the first asteroid was found owing to its closeness to the easily observed Saturn.

This is due to the different distributions of spectral types within different sections of the asteroid belt: the highest-albedo asteroids are all concentrated closer to the orbit of Mars, and much lower albedo C and D types are common in the outer belt.

The fastest rotating bodies are all unnumbered near-Earth objects (NEOs) with a diameter of less than 100 meters (see table).

High-inclination asteroids are either Mars-crossers (possibly in the process of being ejected from the Solar System) or damocloids.

Note there are several cases where a non-numbered minor planets turned out to be a comet, e.g. C/2001 OG108 (LONEOS), which was provisionally designated 2001 OG108.

And in a few cases duplicate names were given to the same object (with modern use of computers to calculate and compare orbits with old recorded positions, this type of error no longer occurs).