YEIHT POST/September 3, 2005
Recently, the officers from IAU said, the discoverers can own the object he or she had discovered. Of course, this will interested more people to find new objects.
Kent Booth of IAU said, if the survey of which has made discovery agree, those who cannot named the object but discover it, can own the object, as well. It's a good news for those who work day and night among the survey pics from SPACEWATCH, NEAT, etc.
There're many asteroids in our solar system, and most of them are very small. Some scientists think those which had been discovered even could not reach the 1/1,000 of the total.

YEIHT邮报/2005年9月3日
根据一条官方转述的消息,国际天文联合会的有关人员说,根据最近的规定,发现者将对自己所发现的天体享有拥有权。这无疑将激励更多的人去发现新天体。
官员肯特·布斯说,如果发现单位同意,只享有发现权的发现者也可以拥有这一块新土地。这对在通过SPACEWATCH、NEAT等巡天计划搜寻小行星的天文爱好者是一个莫大的福音。
太阳系中有不计其数的小石块,大部分直径都在100公里以下,据保守的估计,我们所发现的小行星可能还不到实际总数的1/1000。
相关机构预测,等到了宇航时代,占有和开发自己的小行星将是人类社会事务中一个非常重要的内容。