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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday November 09 2017, @04:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the Kuiper-McKuiperface dept.

The next flyby target of the New Horizons mission (the first spacecraft to visit Pluto) is 2014 MU69. NASA is asking the public to help name it. The name(s) are unlikely to be submitted to the International Astronomical Union before the flyby on January 1, 2019, because scientists are still unsure if 2014 MU69 consists of one or more objects.

To prevent a Boaty McBoatface redux, the New Horizons team is allowing you to pick from a number of options or submit your own name for consideration by December 1st. The poll is only to gauge support; they will decide which name(s) to submit to the IAU (which could also reject the name(s)). And the binary (trinary?) status of 2014 MU69 is likely to affect the name(s) chosen. The names currently being considered are:

  • Año Nuevo ("New Year" in Spanish)
  • Camalor (fictional city in the Kuiper Belt)
  • Chomolungma, Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest in Tibet and Nepal)
  • Kibo, Mawenzi, Shira (peaks of Mt. Kilimanjaro)
  • Mjölnir (Thor's hammer)
  • Pangu (from Chinese mythology, emerged from yin and yang)
  • Peanut, Almond, Cashew (shapes for small bodies)
  • Pluck & Persistence (traits of New Horizons)
  • Sagittarius (constellation behind MU69/mythical centaur)
  • Uluru (Ayers Rock, largest rock on Earth, an "island mountain")
  • Z'ha'dum (fictional planet at the edge of the galaxy)

Also at CNET.

Previously: Occultations of New Horizons' Next Target (2014 MU69) Observed
New Horizons Target 2014 MU69 May be a "Contact Binary"
New Horizons Flyby Plan Finalized; Pluto Features Named


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  • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @04:46PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @04:46PM (#594692)

    It'll be hard to type though because of the umlauts; most English speakers have no idea how to type that.

    I think you mean Windows users. I'm using Windows because I'm at work and proprietary, shit software that only runs on shit operating systems like Windows makes the world go round. I have no idea how to type that.

    However, once I get home, I will know exactly how to type that, thanks to free software. compose, :, o = ö.

    For the comments here, while I'm forced to use a shit OS, HTML entities work well enough. I should probably stop my bitching and get around to installing Gentoo with Windows shit in a VM already. Of course, that takes effort, and will do nothing to prevent feminists and their white knight cavalry blaming me for their own inability to follow Linux from Scratch to learn how an operating system is assembled from free software that feminists are equally empowered to fork in search of their "feminist software," whatever the hell that would be.

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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @05:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @05:02PM (#594701)

    Dude, you've got issues.