39864 Poggiali (provisional designation: 1998 DH20) is a main-belt minor planet. It was discovered by Franco Mallia and Mario Di Sora at the Osservatorio Astronomico di Campo Catino in Italy on February 26, 1998. It is named after for Maurizio Poggiali, an Italian aviator, aerospace engineer, and poet of the 20th century. Asteroids (from Greek 'star' and 'like, in form') are a class of Small Solar System Bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones. These terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not show the disk of a planet and was not observed to have the characteristics of an active comet, but as small objects in the outer Solar System were discovered, their volatile-based surfaces were found to more closely resemble comets, and so were often distinguished from traditional asteroids.