conduct follow-up observations using the Hubble Space Telescope to measure Quaoar's size. He had also planned to announce the discovery as soon as possible and found it necessary to keep the discovery information confidential during the follow-up observations. Rather than submitting his Hubble proposal under peer review, Brown submitted his proposal directly to one of Hubble's operators, who promptly allocated time to Brown. While setting up the observing algorithm for Hubble, Brown had also planned to use one of the Keck telescopes in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, as a part of a study on cryovolcanism on the moons of Uranus. This provided him additional time for follow-up observations and took advantage of the whole observing session in July to analyze Quaoar's spectrum and characterize its surface composition. The discovery of Quaoar was formally announced by the Minor Planet Center in a Minor Planet Electronic Circular on 7 October 2002. It was given the provisional designation , indicating that its discovery took place during the first half of June 2002. Quaoar was the 1,512th object discovered in the first half of June, as indicated by the preceding letter and numbers in its provisional designation. On that same day, Trujillo and Brown reported their scientific results from observations of Quaoar at the 34th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in Birmingham, Alabama. They announced Quaoar was the largest Kuiper belt object found yet, surpassing previous record holders 20000 Varuna and . Quaoar's discovery has been cited by Brown as having contributed to the reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet. Since then, Brown has contributed to the discovery of larger trans-Neptunian objects, including Haumea, , Makemake and . Name and symbol Upon Quaoar's discovery, it was initially given the temporary nickname "Object X" as a reference to Planet X, due to its potentially large size and unknown nature. At the time, Quaoar's size was uncertain, and its high brightness led the discovery team to speculate that it may be a possible tenth planet. After measuring Quaoar's size with the Hubble Space Telescope in July, the team began considering names for the object, particularly those from New World mythologies. Following the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) naming convention for minor planets, non-resonant Kuiper belt objects are to be named after creation deities. The team settled on selecting names from Native American mythologies local to the Palomar Mountain region, the location