Fernández, Julio A.; Yoshikawa, Makoto; Valsecchi, Giovanni B.; Chesley, Steven R.; Chernetenko, Yulia A.; Gilmore, Alan C.; Lazzaro, Daniela; Muinonen, Karri; Pravec, Petr; Spahr, Timothy B.; Tholen, David J.; Tichá, Jana; Zhu, Jin

Abstract. Commission 20 has been involved in the discussion on discovery credit rules of solar system objects (mainly concerned with asteroids) in particular with the role played by dynamicists in recovering objects by linking their orbits with previous apparitions. A working group was set up to discuss the issue that was integrated by professional astronomers as well as amateurs. There was some exchange of opinions and conflicting views, but the trend of the majority was to keep the discovery credit for the discoverer whose observations led to the object's principal designation, as expressed in the MPC existing rules (see ), considering only exceptionally credit for dynamicists when linkage of different apparitions led to the recovery of a lost object. The precise definition of non-trivial linkage should be worked out, and for the time being, the idea is to keep the existing MPC rules and, if necessary, to improve them, rather than starting a new set of rules.

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