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.]

Rob:

A planet which should be renamed? Can't think of any, oh no (snigger).

Why did they name Pluto after Mickey's dog, rather than Mickey himself? If Planet X had been found in the 1930s, would it have been named after Donald Duck's nephews (hey! good names for 'droids!) or would they just have given up after having gone for the dog?

And did you know that the Powers That Be wouldn't allow an asteroid to be named after Frank Zappa, but that they didn't notice Zappafrank?

Call it schoolboy humour, but I've always been so sad that there are no black rings around Neptune.

Bob Shaw

This is an interesting topic. I don't agree about Iapetus and Janus, though; Janus is two-faced, but both faces are the same! An appropriate mythological name for Iapetus based on its albedo might be Hel, Norse goddess of the underworld, whose face is half black, half white.

Io obviously ought to be Aitne/Aetna or Vulcan or some similar name alluding to Io's many volcanoes.

Many of Jupiter's moons (VI-XII) at one time had unofficial names that referred to other members of the Greek pantheon: Demeter, Hestia, Hera, Poseidon, Hades. Carme at that time was "Pan" and Ananke was "Adrastea". The names were obviously a bit grandiose for such small satellites, but the chosen remedy, sometime around 1974-1975, of replacing their names with the most arcane names of Greek nymphs (many of which can't be found in even specialized dictionaries of mythology) was something of an overreaction.

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.

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

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".

Yes. In fact, the dog was named after the planet. Pluto the dog was introduced in 1930, on the same year when the planet was found.

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.

Roman Gods? Why not other gods? There are plenty of gods everywhere. For instance in Tibet they have one kalled Kalachakra, who has the advantage to already have the 10th planet named. Astronomers of all countries, join the Kalachakra cult!

Pluto? Who dared to believe that it was the dog's name? Somebody who knows Mickey but not his latin classics, of course. O tempora, O mores...

Other puns to come later. Interesting topic anyway.

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

Ah, this is certainly a great honour for Mr Bush and Cheney.







Why not to rename it, not after the Greek name, but after the most ancient Indian name? Ouranos. Nice name, and a acknowledgement of a little known history: Indian gods are the parents of the greek gods.


You don't find the joke? What joke? there is no joke here, for once I am serious.

Just expect that Ouranos don't make a worse pun in another language.




please send it privately!

If you open up the issue of renaming the planets, I think all hell would break loose. The Right Wing would be picketing NASA, demanding that "pagan" names be replaced with bible characters. The Left Wing would be picketing, demanding that the names be inclusive of oppressed third-world cultures. There would be committees, public referendums, and in the end, the new names would be dumb.

Old Name -- New Name
Io -- Kaluannuunohonionio
Ganymede -- Phelps
Calisto -- Susan B. Anthony
Europa -- Schwarzenegger

I want a planet named Englebert.

AAAAAArrrrghhh! noooo!


I understand your point. <vey bad pun>Perhaps, only one planet to be renamed, the one which don't dare to tell its name, but you are right, who know whom a****** 's name it would be given.</very bad pun>


Perhaps they would let me do, I am very good at naming planets.

In my novel of the marvellous World of the Eolis, you have:
-Dektletpon (Mercury-like planet, but smaller) God of swiftness and laughter
-Bulune (Venus-like) Goddess of a lovely part of women
-Aeoliah (Earth like, but larger, and without stupids to spoil life on it)
-Arkator (Moon-like, in Mars position) very classicaly god of law and fights
-Antheroah (Jupiter-like, more colourful) God of majesty, fairness and honest way of life.
-Uhluhlorah (Uranus like, in position of Saturn, and without bad puns) God of spirituality and magic

Easy to remember, isn't it?

Since when?

However, it is true that many Greek and Vedic gods are related; the best example is the Indo-European sky god Dyēus (Greek Zeus, Roman Ius Pater -> Jupiter, Vedic Dyauṣ Pitā, Germanic Tiwaz -> Tyr, Baltic Dievas, Slavic Div).

There are many other correspondences like that. For instance the greek Ouranos (god of the skies) would be the same than Varuna in India. The reason why it is so is that the Indo-European culture evolved into several separate branches, which created each one its mythology, but starting from the same basis. In the case of the Greeks, they said their Gods were the sons of the former indian gods, so that they still acknowledge the indian gods, but India ignores the greek gods.

Varuna is already used to name a KBO, otherwise it woould be fine to rename you know which planet and end any pun about it.

By the way this problem is only for english people, in other languages it don't sound the same.

Introduction to Asteroids lists several naming problems.

1036 Ganymed and Ganymede

203 Kallisto and Callisto

38 Leda and Leda

85 Io and Io

106 Dione and Dione

593 Titania and Titania


Also, several pairs of asteroids are confusingly named.

908 Buda and 1158 Luda

1266 Tone and 924 Toni ( by now there is probably a Tony out there too . . . .)

1792 Reni and 1371 Resi

265 Anna and 1668 Hanna

(There is quite a list of these)




I suppose we can caution folks to be careful picking names, but once IAU confers the blessing, we be stuck with the it.

Geez, that's a good point about Io. It really does deserve the name "Vulcan". There goes my idea of swapping the names of the Big Four asteroids with those of the Galileans.

I suppose we could always leave out Vesta. She was always kind of a dull homebody, anyways.

By the way: You can't keep us on tenterhooks forever about your renaming idea for "Ouranus", Phil!

Vulcan is already chosen for that planet inside Mercury's orbit, to say nothing
of that other world with the beings with pointy ears and extreme logic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_%28planet%29

In other news...

Well, as long as the number is included, it shouldn't be a problem. That's the key.

A far worse problem can be found in the naming of the chemical elements. Four of them are named after the town of Ytterby in Sweden: yttrium, ytterbium, erbium and terbium. Letting a discoverer name their discovery is all fine and dandy but this is bloody confusing! Chemistry is difficult enough to learn without throwing curveballs like this at the students.

Don't get me started on "metal-rich stars"...

Since everything in America is gradually being renamed after Ronald Reagan, perhaps the only way to stop the trend once and for all is to rename American's home planet "The Ronald R. Reagan Memorial Home Planet." People might not like having the entire planet named after him, but it would stop the madness.

The other possibility is to take advantage of corporate naming rights. Every sports venue and theatre in America has its name up for sale to the highest bidder. We could fund a tremendous amount of space research if the AU were to sell naming rights to the planets, asteroids, and moons.

Ford Motor Company should already be charged for Mercury - they've had the free advertising all this time. Likewise, Mars Corp. should be charged retroactively for the 4th planet. The petrochemical companies would probably go after the gas giants...

While I would hate to see it go to extremes, I don't think giving a
minor planetoid the same moniker as a giant moon is much of a
problem.

The general public won't know or care, any good astronomer will
know the difference, and any astronaut who can't tell the difference
when trying to land on one of those celestial bodies should not be
flying up there.

Maybe we should just number everything, like the Borg.

Ouranos becomes from the proto-Greek word *worsanos, 'moisten'. The link to Varuna has been largely rejected.



Greek gods are sons of Indian gods? That statement doesn't make sense because all the Greek deities are children of Gaia (who is a child of Chaos which was before anything else). Gaia gave birth to Uranos, and their children are the titans and gigants. The children and grandchildren of titan Chronus are the Olympian gods.

The Vedic gods who are related to Greek gods in etymological sense are largely abandoned in the modern Hinduism.



Indeed. Still I hope that there won't be a planet called Persephone, for the same reason. (If you want to know what Persefone means in my mother tongue Finnish, just replace 'Pe' with 'A' )

It isn't even a town, just a tiny village with an abandoned feldspar mine where all those "rare earths" were found.

tty

This is a strange thread. Who are we to rename planets and moons and chemical elements for no good reason?

Ummmm.... No. I'll be good. I shan't say a word...

-the other Doug

To be noted a thread on naming unnamed asteroids, where verybody can actually excert his talents:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...wtopic=2866&hl=






We are not intelligent beings, just joking beings.

This thread is just for fun, I think, although there are relevant issues about some names. Nobody really intend to actually change planet names, I think, even when there are problems about them.

Just wrapping up a loose end here: In the first post in this thread, I said:



The not-so-obvious one is the moon we currently call Hyperion, which, let's face it, looks a lot more like a Puck.

Europa shall hense forth be known as Lilliput and Blefuscu. Which ever name you wish to call it is up to you.

Vixgizmo may appreciate that joke...