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Pallas and Vesta were discovered by the German physician and amateur astronomer Olbers.
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It is really a special case when an asteroid, which has essentially nothing special gets its own medal. Yet it happened.
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The number of asteroids with known orbit was 410810 in July 2014. With such a large number it is no wonder that a new asteroid will only get attention if its path crosses that of Earth, and has the chance to hit it once. It was not always this way, in the mid-1800s even a commemorative medal has been issued to the occasion of the discovery of 100th asteroid.
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A lot of asteroids are orbiting in the Solar System. Yet they are missing from most medals, which depicts the solar system's planets. There are fortunately rare exceptions.