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The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is an organization for collecting, organizing, and distributing data on minor planets (e.g., asteroids, comets, and beginning recently, interstellar interlopers), operating as a service of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), assigning provisional and standardized designations when appropriate. More than a million minor planets are recorded, and data from the MPC is valuable for astronomical studies. Among these, the MPC specifically tracks near-Earth objects (NEOs), recording, predicting and alerting on close encounters with Earth.
The MPC works hand and hand with the IAU Working Group on Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN), which I believe develops the standardized designation-conventions, and takes a hand in approving names given to some small bodies.