Plutos New Moons Part 2, News ... Options

[Michael Capobian...]

No one's mentioned Proserpina, Queen of the Underword and Pluto's wife. Even though the names have already been given to asteroids, I think Cerberus and Proserpina are the most appropriate.

One name that hasn't been given to an asteroid but which would result in some amusing double-takes is Mors (death).

[Rob Pinnegar]

No one's mentioned Proserpina, Queen of the Underword and Pluto's wife. Even though the names have already been given to asteroids, I think Cerberus and Proserpina are the most appropriate.

Probably the reason nobody's mentioned Proserpina or Persephone is that many people are figuring that those names are first in line for 2003 UB313. That's why I didn't mention them, at least.

[Edit: Yeah, Bruce, Cerberus and Orthrus were brothers. Orthrus only had two heads, though. Budget cuts.]

[mcaplinger]

...lest we forget 85 Io, 52 Europa, 55 Pandora, 106 Dione, 1810 Epimetheus, and 4450 Pan...

The first few were named before anything like the current IAU regime, but weren't the Saturnian satellites Epimetheus and Pan named after the Voyager flybys? So that's clear modern precedent for recycling of asteroid names. Eat that, IAU Commission 20!

[JRehling]

The first few were named before anything like the current IAU regime, but weren't the Saturnian satellites Epimetheus and Pan named after the Voyager flybys? So that's clear modern precedent for recycling of asteroid names. Eat that, IAU Commission 20!

Doubling up is probably an appropriate response, but it would be tempting to push for a total "steal" of some of these names. It's just silly to have an asteroid named Europa.

It seems to me there are a couple of objective functions here, where one is how often a world will ever be mentioned and then how intrinsically desirable a name is, and ideally the two would align. Give Jupiter a high-profile name (check!) and give some 7 km rock in the middle of the asteroid belt the name Mildred. Where glaring discrepancies exist, I'd just as soon see us "harvest" the best names, and deal with the (exceedingly) rare case that someone in 2017 would have trouble finding a paper on 7868 Mildred because they didn't know that it used to be called 7868 Odin. If the premise is that these worlds are rarely mentioned, then the harm is minimized.

Fight the power!

[Rob Pinnegar]

Hmmm. I suppose that it wouldn't be difficult to add "A" to the end of some of those asteroid names, to distinguish 52 Europa A from Jupiter's moon Europa. Or something along those lines.

On the subject of moon names: if there was one I could change, it'd be Iapetus. No other moon in the solar system deserves the name "Janus" more.

[Michael Capobian...]

The same problem applies to naming planetary features. For many of the outer solar system satllites, they've used up the most important names in their naming schemes for what was visible in Voyager images. So if the IAU is consistent, we'll end up with bottom-of-the-barrel names for the most prominent craters on Dione and Iapetus, not to mention interesting non-craters like the belly band and the tiger stripes.

[odave]

...add "A" to the end of some of those asteroid names

...that might be confusing for some Canadians

[ducks and runs]

[Decepticon]

^Ouch! Below the belt!







ahun ahun...

[David]

I'd just as soon see us "harvest" the best names, and deal with the (exceedingly) rare case that someone in 2017 would have trouble finding a paper on 7868 Mildred because they didn't know that it used to be called 7868 Odin. If the premise is that these worlds are rarely mentioned, then the harm is minimized.

Fight the power!

That's 878 Mildred and 3989 Odin. You see, you can't come up with a name so ridiculous that it hasn't been taken by an asteroid!

In my opinion, the numerical prefix is a sufficient distinction: 52 Europa is one body, Europa is another. To be fair, in 1858 when 52 Europa was named, it was probably felt that "Europa" was an abandoned name for "Jupiter II", and hence reusable. At that point Jupiter's satellites were still merely featureless points of light in a telescope, and it was not foreseen that they would eventually be seen as worlds deserving of unique names. One could argue that such an argument goes doubly for most of the asteroid belt.

[Jyril]

Geez, last night I had a dream where these moons turned out not to be real (they weren't visible in newer Hubble images). Oh the disappointment!

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

The Weaver et al. and Stern et al. papers reporting the discovery are finally being published in the February 23, 2006, issue of Nature. See also the accompanying News and Views piece by Richard Binzel.

[Jyril]

Related press release: Pluto's New Moons Likely Born with Charon; Pluto May Even Have Rings

[ljk4-1]

EMBARGOED UNTIL: 1:00 pm (EST) February 22, 2006

PHOTO NO.: STScI-PRC06-09

HUBBLE CONFIRMS NEW MOONS OF PLUTO

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed
the presence of two new moons around the distant planet Pluto.
The moons were first discovered by Hubble in May 2005, but the
Pluto Companion Search team probed even deeper into the Pluto
system with Hubble on Feb. 15 to look for additional satellites
and to characterize the orbits of the moons. In the image, Pluto
is in the center and Charon is just below it. The moons,
provisionally designated S/2005 P 1 and S/2005 P 2, are located to
the right of Pluto and Charon. The initial discovery is being reported
today in this week's edition of the British science journal Nature.

Credit: NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics
Laboratory), A. Stern (Southwest Research Institute) and the HST Pluto
Companion Search Team

For images and additional information about this research on the Web,
visit:

http://hubblesite.org/news/2006/09
http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressrele...2006/060222.asp
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/recent/

For more information, contact:

Donna Weaver, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.,
(phone) 410-338-4993, (e-mail) dweaver@stsci.edu or

Hal Weaver, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory,
Laurel, Md., (phone) 443-778-8078, (e-mail) hal.weaver@jhuapl.edu.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation
between NASA and the European Space Agency. The Space Telescope Science
Institute in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. The Institute
is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in
Astronomy, Inc., Washington.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Pluto Might Have Rings
By Ker Than
Staff Writer, Space.,com
posted: 22 February 2006
01:03 pm ET

[ljk4-1]

Pluto Might Have Rings
By Ker Than
Staff Writer, Space.,com
posted: 22 February 2006
01:03 pm ET

Question of the Day: Should rings or other forms of debris around Pluto be
proven true, is New Horizons capable of detecting and avoiding them on its own?