Editing 2060 Chiron (section)

=== Discovery ===

Chiron was discovered on 1 November 1977 by [[Charles Kowal]] from images taken on 18 October at [[Palomar Observatory]].<ref name="Kowal-1978" /><ref name="gsfc-Chiron" /> It was given the temporary designation of {{mp|1977 UB}}.<ref name="Campins-1994" /> It was found near [[aphelion]]<ref name="Kowal-1978" /> and at the time of discovery it was the most distant known minor planet.<ref group=lower-alpha>[[Pluto]], now considered to be a [[dwarf planet]] and hence a minor planet, was known at the time, but was considered a planet.</ref><ref name="Campins-1994" /> Chiron was even claimed as the tenth planet by the press.<ref name="Collander-Brown2000" /> Chiron was later found on several [[precovery]] images, going back to 1895,<ref name="Perihelion" /> which allowed its orbit to be accurately determined.<ref name="Kowal-1978" /> It had been at [[perihelion]] in 1945 but was not discovered then because there were few searches being made at that time, and these were not sensitive to slow-moving objects. The Lowell Observatory's survey for distant planets would not have gone down faint enough in the 1930s and did not cover the right region of the sky in the 1940s.<ref name="Kowal-1978" /> The April 1895 precovery image was one month after the March 1895 perihelion.<ref name="Horizons1895"/>