[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.]

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

I think it's an urban myth that the 9th planet is named after the cartoon character. The name of Pluto was suggested by an English schoolgirl who wrote to Tombaugh. She was recently interviewed by NASA and said the planet was named after the Roman god.

Aren't most new moons named by their discoverers? Seems fair.

[David]

Aren't most new moons named by their discoverers? Seems fair.

That seems to be the way it's gone since 1974, when Leda was discovered. Before that, though:

Jupiter I-IV were given their names by Simon Marius, who is generally considered to have plagiarized Galileo. Perhaps this association made the whole practice of naming moons look bad, because:

Titan went nameless from 1655 to 1846; Rhea, Iapetus, Tethys, Dione, Mimas and Enceladus likewise went without names from their discoveries until 1846. They were named by John Herschel.
Titania and Oberon went nameless from 1787 to 1852, when they were joined by the recently discovered Ariel and Umbriel. They were also named by Herschel.
Triton, discovered in 1846, went unnamed until 1880, and the name was not much used until well into the 20th century. Camille Flammarion contributed the name.
The 8 moons of Jupiter discovered from 1892 to 1951 were given unofficial names that were rarely if ever used in scientific literature and, with the exception of Amalthea, were all replaced with quite different names in the 1970s. They were usually referred to as Jupiter V, Jupiter VI, etc. The names were given by J. Blunck.

As far as I can tell, the first satellite to be named by its own discoverer was Hyperion in 1848, by Lassell.

I wonder if the need to name every moon -- something clearly not thought pressing or even important by the early telescopic astronomers -- was encouraged by science fiction authors, who, for narrative purposes, needed to think of moons as places rather than just coordinates, and so found it more exciting to say that Captain Cosmic's rocket, the Cosmic Comet, landed (tail-first, naturally) on Callisto, rather than boring old "Jupiter IV".

[Jyril]

Jupiter I-IV were given their names by Simon Marius, who is generally considered to have plagiarized Galileo. Perhaps this association made the whole practice of naming moons look bad

Well, naming Jupiter's moons after his lovers (especially when Ganymede was male) weren't considered very elegant. Perhaps Marius invented those names only to annoy Galileo, who suggested more grandeur names like the names of four brothers in the Medici family who patronised him.

[David]

Perhaps Marius invented those names only to annoy Galileo, who suggested more grandeur names like the names of four brothers in the Medici family who patronised him.

Yes, that's also a fine old tradition, along with Cassini's Sidera Lodoicea, Herschel's Georgium Sidus, and Piazzi's Ferdinandea. Perhaps the IAU could gain some political support by naming 2003 UB313 and its satellite Cheney and Bush.

[ljk4-1]

Yes, that's also a fine old tradition, along with Cassini's Sidera Lodoicea, Herschel's Georgium Sidus, and Piazzi's Ferdinandea. Perhaps the IAU could gain some political support by naming 2003 UB313 and its satellite Cheney and Bush.

It's too late - their names have already been given to some species
of slime mold beetle:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April0...Cheney.ssl.html