[X] My Assistant

[Rob Pinnegar]

One bothersome thing about the naming scheme of Saturn's moons is that the one moon in the Solar System that most obviously deserves to be named after the two-faced god "Janus" ended up being called Iapetus instead. Also, since the mythological Iapetus was the father of Epimetheus, Prometheus, and Atlas, the moon that ended up being called Janus would really be much better suited to being named Iapetus. So, in a way, Janus and Iapetus have got each other's names.

(This all has to do, incidentally, with John Herschel's naming scheme for Saturnian moons, which suggests that they all be named after the Titans. "Janus" doesn't appear on this list, so it didn't get used at first. Of course, the convention didn't stick; it was broken with the naming of Mimas and Enceladus, though some subsequent discoveries have been named after other Titans.)

So I thought I'd start a topic on what Solar System bodies really should have different names, based on the importance of the Greco-Roman gods they are named after, and on information we have access to in the 21st century which the bodies' discoverers didn't know. There isn't much point to this, since obviously the names can't be changed now, but I thought it'd be fun to toss some ideas around.

The only other major change I'd make, if I had my "druthers" (ah there, Walt Kelly) would be to switch the names of the "Big Four" asteroids with those of the Galilean moons. It's kind of silly to name a 250-km asteroid after the Queen of Olympus when there's a body twenty times bigger named after a shepherd.

[Edit: Upon a bit more reflection, I can think of two others. One of these is so glaringly axiomatic to anyone who speaks English that, naturally, I didn't think of it at first. The other is not so obvious and I'll wait to see if anyone else comes up with it.]

[Phil Stooke]

I think I detect a few guarded references to The Planet That Dare Not Speak Its Name. If I wasn't afraid of being unceremoniously booted out of UMSF I would share with you my answer to this terrible problem.

Janus was originally detected as a mix of observations of both coorbitals during the ring plane crossing. Because two worlds were being interpreted as one, a proper orbit couldn't be figured out at first. When it became apparent there were two separate worlds in very similar orbits the name Janus seemed quite appropriate. This at any rate is my version of events.

Phil