What's In a Name?

Xena.  2003 UB313.  Eris.

These names all refer to the same astronomical body - a dwarf planet located out near Pluto.  "Xena" was the nickname given to the little world by its discoverer, Mike Brown.  2003 UB313 was its official designation until an official name, Eris, was given to it in  2006. Okay, well...technically, the body's official official name is 136199 Eris.

Eris and its moon Dysnomia, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope.  Courtesy Wikipedia.

Why all the fuss over a name?

In the astronomical community, names are important things.  For many of the same reasons they are important beyond the astronomical community too.  We need names to know what we're talking about.  If everyone had a different set of names for all the different objects in the solar system, well, it would make doing a live planetarium show a lot tougher, let me tell you.  Scientists around the world need a consistent set of names for things so they can share information with colleagues around the world. 

Names can also be used to honor different groups of people as well.  We like a certain consistency in that.  For example, all of the features on Venus are named for women.  Mostly goddess from various mythologies around the world, but also for famous women, and even some just commonly used women's names.  Of course, any convention just begs for exceptions.  Venus has three - all features that were named before the naming convention was put into use.  Two regions on Venus, Alpha Regio and Beta Regio, are simply named for the first two letters in the Greek alphabet.  There is only one feature on Venus named for a man - Maxwell Montes, named for physicist James Clerk Maxwell.

A radar image of Maxwell Montes on Venus - the only feature there named for a man.  Courtesy Wikipedia

Scientists are by nature organizers...we like to sort things into categories and name them all the same.  For example, the naming convention for moons of Uranus is to name them for Shakespearean sprites and fairies.  Thus the planet has moons like Puck, Oberon, Titania, and Ariel. 

Uranus and its 6 largest moons - from left to right, Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon.  Courtesy Wikipedia.

So who comes up with all this?

The governing body for astronomical science, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), puts together all the rules and regulations for how to name things, and gives official approval to the names of new objects. The IAU's Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN) handles things within our solar system.  Names can be submitted to the WGPSN, and then they recommend them for approval by the General Assembly or reject them.  A name is not official until it has been approved by the General Assembly.

In general, the working rules for submitting a name to the WGPSN are:

1. Nomenclature is a tool and the first consideration should be to make it simple, clear, and unambiguous.
2. Features whose longest dimension is less than 100 meters are not assigned official names unless they have exceptional scientific interest.
3. The number of names chosen for each body should be kept to a minimum, and their placement governed by the requirements of the scientific community.
4. Duplication of the same name on two or more bodies is to be avoided.
5. Individual names chosen for each body should be expressed in the language of origin. Transliteration for various alphabets should be given, but there will be no translation from one language to another.
6. Where possible, the themes established in early solar system nomenclature should be used and expanded on.
7. Solar system nomenclature should be international in its choice of names. Recommendations submitted to the IAU national committees will be considered, but final selection of the names is the responsibility of the International Astronomical Union. The WGPSN strongly supports equitable selection of names from ethnic groups/countries on each map; however, a higher percentage of names from the country planning a landing is allowed on landing site maps.
8. No names having political, military or religious significance may be used, except for names of political figures prior to the 19th century. (Note: Apparently this only goes for religions that are widely practiced today, since gods and goddesses of ancient religions are obviously acceptable to the IAU.)
9. Commemoration of persons on planetary bodies should not be a goal in itself but should be reserved for persons of high and enduring international standing. Persons being so honored must have been deceased for at least three years.
10. When more than one spelling of a name is extant, the spelling preferred by the person, or used in an authoritative reference, should be used. Diacritical marks are a necessary part of a name and will be used.
11. Ring and ring-gap nomenclature and names for newly discovered satellites are developed in joint deliberation between WGPSN and IAU Commission 20. Names will not be assigned to satellites until their orbital elements are reasonably well known or definite features have been identified on them.

Pretty intense, just to give something out there a name, huh?

The IAU has come under fire for a very big renaming - the recelassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet.  The IAU is also responsible for the definitions of things...like the word "planet."  It's a work in progress, and many people think the IAU's definition of planet is still not right.  Pluto got moved into the dwarf planet category because the IAU defined a planet as having cleared its orbital area of similarly-sized bodies.   Pluto has several other objects of similar size (some of which are now dwarf planets, too) orbiting nearby, so it couldn't pass that part of the definition.  This same definition also places a requirement on a planet that it orbits the Sun.  That might seem like a no-brainer...until we remember that many other stars besides the Sun have big worlds going around them too.  Are these worlds not planets, simply because they orbit around another star?  Clearly, the definition of planet still needs a bit of tweaking. 

But that's why the IAU is there...and that's what science is all about.  As our understanding grows and changes, so also must our definitions, names and descriptions.  It's all part of the messy process of learning we call science.

When I first started working in the astronomy group at the Virginia Living Museum, I was young, and still working on my Ph.D.  The guys in the astronomy group called me "Astrogirl" - a nickname I still frequently use.  But I've been with the museum over 20 years now, volunteer to Astronomy Curator, and I'm probably getting a bit old for a nickname that prominently features the word "girl."  I think I might move up to a new one, bestowed upon me by one of the herpetologists here at the museum.

More from the cosmos in two weeks...until then...
Carpe Noctem!
Kelly, The Sky Doctor

From the King of Planets to a Nobel Prize Winner

Does anyone out there besides me remember a wonderful television series called Connections?

It was hosted by James Burke, produced by the BBC and ran on PBS back in the late 70s and early 80s.  The mid-80s saw a similar program, The Day the Universe Changed, also on PBS and hosted by Burke.  In the mid- to late 90s cable TV got into the act with TLC (back when it could honestly claim the name The Learning Channel) running two follow-on series: Connections2 and Connections3.  I never liked those as much, but I adored the original series and Universe.  James Burke is, even today, one of the more brilliant science historians the planet has ever seen.  His approach to the history of science is simple and at once astonishing.  In short, he takes a "six degrees of separation" approach - everything is interconnected.  He rejects the linear approach - one discovery leading in simple direct line to a final conclusion - and shows you the massive web of interconnectedness that is all of human history - science, art, politics, music, anything and everything.  It was a mind-blowing experience to watch any episode of any of James Burke's shows, and I credit him with propelling me forward to not only study science, but to attempt as best I can to teach it to others and help them see its connection to their daily lives.

James Burke, wizard of science history.  Courtesy Wikipedia.

 I really must get some of those shows on DVD.

If ever the opportunity presents itself (Netflix, perhaps?) watch them.

But, actually, you can sort of engage in a poor man's version of Connections right now.  Wikipedia allows one to spend hours discovering ever more bizarre connections between things you never thought had a single thing to do with one another.  I call it a poor man's Connections because it lacks the vision and brilliance and wonderfully dry humor Mr. Burke brings to his programs.  But it is fun to get lost in Wikipedia nonetheless.

One of my favorite episodes of Connections, "Eat, Drink and be Merry..." explains how a plastic credit card leads us to landing a man on the Moon.  I'll not reproduce that for you here (go find the episode and watch it!) but I will share an interesting little journey I took through Wikipedia earlier today (the inspiration for this post).

I started on the Wikipedia entry for Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system.  I went there looking for a specific piece of information (which I now cannot for the life of me remember) but I quickly got absorbed in just reading.  And don't look shocked - NASA has enough tech geeks that police Wikipedia's space science entries - they are usually quite accurate.

Jupiter, king of the planets.  Read on to find out what this has to do with the Nobel Prize.  Image by Cassini.  Courtesy NASA and Wikipedia.

Anyway, I soon jumped from Jupiter the planet to Jupiter the Roman god.  I've always been fascinated by mythology (mostly Greek, but Roman works too) and so that was a natural leap for me.  From there I discovered that many of Jupiter's functions were focused on the Capitoline - and I clicked.

The Capitoline is one of the seven hills of Rome.  Its ancient ruins are largely buried under medieval and Renaissance palaces surrounding a piazza... *click*

A piazza is simply the Italian name for a city square.  Inigo Jones brought the style to London in the building of Covent Garden under the patronage of Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford... *click*  (okay, another predictable one for me...I confess to be a total anglophile and I love reading about British nobility)

The 4th Earl of Bedford not only championed the building of Covent Garden with its piazza and Church of St. Paul, he was also the man who pioneered the project to drain The Fens of Cambridgeshire... *click*

The Fens, or the Fenland, is an enormous area of marshland, now largely drained thanks to efforts of our friend Francis Russell.  They are so called because they are true fens -possessing an alkaline water chemistry...  *click*  (I clicked here because usually alkaline water is not so good for plant growth...curiosity got me...)

An alkali is a basic or ionic salt of an alkaline earth metal... *click*  (curiosity again...I'd never heard the term alkaline earth metal before...or if I had I dumped out of my brain with the rest of what I ever learned about chemistry!)

The alkaline earth metals are all elements in a particular column of the periodic table, usually called the group 2 elements (aha! That I know!).  These elements are beryllium, magnesium, calcium, strontium, barium and radium... *click*  (everybody likes radioactive stuff!)

Radium is a highly radioactive element discovered, in the form of radium chloride (a salt!  see above) in 1898 by Marie Curie...(hey wait!  I know her!)

Marie Curie, is of course, known to any girl who goes into the sciences.  She was a Polish physicist and chemist, the first woman to ever win a Nobel Prize, the only woman ever to win in two fields (physics and chemistry), and still the only person of either gender to win in multiple sciences (the other three multi-Nobel winners received theirs in only one science category).

Marie Curie, a giant in the fields of physics and chemistry by anyone's standards.  And forever connected to the planet Jupiter.  Image courtesy Wikipedia.

So there you go.  If anyone ever asks you what the Nobel Prize has to do with the planet Jupiter, you can now tell them.

Okay, silly, but a fun way to spend an afternoon.
More in two weeks...
Until then, carpe noctem!
Kelly