Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by takyon on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the cold-cereal dept.

If you need any proof that NASA fans are geeks of the highest order (and we mean that as the highest compliment, of course), all you need to do is look at the open call for name submissions that NASA ran in April to help name the features on Pluto and its orbiting bodies, which got submissions like Cthulhu, Balrog, Kirk and Spock.

The rules for naming such things are always set by International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Paris. In this case, they opened it up to names from mythology, science fiction and fantasy. For example, since Charon was the ferryman who took souls across the river Styx, names of features on Pluto's moon Charon will be drawn from mythical and fictional stories of travel and exploration. And as dwarf planet Ceres was a Roman goddess of agriculture and fertility, the IAU dictated that names of its features would come from "spirits and deities relating to agriculture from a variety of cultures," according to NASA.

The organization on July 28 released some stunning maps of Ceres, which is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that has been getting examined by the Dawn spacecraft since March. The maps use color to differentiate the heights of various craters and peaks on the Ceres. (Previously we've mostly been admiring black and white photos of bright spots and pyramids.) The map below is also labeled with the names of the features that have now been approved by the IAU.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @09:11AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @09:11AM (#217832)

    I, for one, welcome the Autocrat of Ceres. What's that? There is no Autocrat of Ceres, and there never will be? Everyone is planning to sit on their fat stupid asses on this ball of dirt we call the Earth until the Charonians eat us all? Well then. If humans want to be totally insignificant on the cosmic scale, then total human extinction can't come soon enough. Die now before something interesting happens.