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Subscribe to RSSNBC News' Alan Boyle joins the SETI Institute's Mark Showalter and Franck Marchis in a Google+ Hangout marking the end of the "Pluto Rocks" moon-naming contest.
Vulcan and Cerberus (or Kerberos) emerged as the people's choices for naming Pluto's tiniest moons in the SETI Institute's "Pluto Rocks" contest, which ended on Monday. But in the course of running the contest, the organizers fielded 30,000 write-in suggestions — and you may well see some of those suggestions surface in the future.
"I've been delighted by the response," said Mark Showalter, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute who played a leading role in the discovery of Pluto's fourth and fifth moons. Showalter was the point person for the moon-naming contest, which drew more than 450,000 online votes over the past two weeks.
More than 20 names were on the ballot, including Vulcan (the Roman god of fire) and Cerberus (the watchdog of the underworld). Vulcan was added to the list after the contest started, at the urging of "Star Trek" actor William Shatner, and grabbed the lion's share of the votes. But there were scads of other suggestions that weren't used, mostly because they weren't in line with the International Astronomical Union's tradition that the moons of Pluto should be named after figures from Greek or Roman mythology with some sort of connection to the underworld. Pluto was himself the mythological god of the underworld.
It's the IAU that has the final say over the names for the moons, which were discovered over the past couple of years and are now known merely as P4 and P5. Now that the crowdsourcing contest is over, Showalter willl be meeting with his colleagues on the discovery team and discussing whether to go with Vulcan and Cerberus or some other names. The names selected by the discoverers will then be considered by IAU committee members for adoption or reconsideration.
"It could take one to two months for the final names of P4 and P5 to be selected and approved," Showalter said on the "Pluto Rocks" website. "Stay tuned."
M. Buie / SwRI / NASA / ESA
These two pictures of Pluto represent the Hubble Space Telescope's most detailed view of the dwarf planet, but pictures from NASA's New Horizons probe should provide better resolution.
During a Google+ Hangout, Showalter mentioned the two most frequently suggested names that were left off the ballot. No surprise there: Considering that Pluto is a Disney cartoon character as well as a dwarf planet, you'd expect that Mickey and Minnie (as in Walt Disney's talking mice) would be the favorites.
"Yes, I am a big fan of Disney myself, but no, they are not compliant names," Showalter said. Although Mickey and Minnie make a cuter couple than Orpheus and Eurydice, they're not Greek or Roman mythological characters connected with the underworld.
Some of the other names, however, may come up again. When NASA's New Horizons probe sails past Pluto in 2015, still more mini-moons might be spotted. P6, P7 and so on would provide additional opportunities for the "compliant names" on Showalter's newly expanded list. And that's not all: New Horizons' camera could to snap pictures of previously unseen features on Pluto and its moons, That opens up a new frontier for names.
The names of planetary features don't have to follow the rules about Greek or Roman mythology: On Mercury, for example, craters are named after famous writers and artists. The hydrocarbon lakes detected on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, are named after the earthly lakes they resemble. Titan's mountains are named after the fictional mountains from "The Lord of the Rings" and other works by J.R.R. Tolkien, while the Saturnian moon's dark plains are named after planets from the "Dune" science-fiction series.
For Pluto and its moons, "we have all kinds of options," Showalter said. He noted that the naming suggestions followed some potentially appealing trends — specifically, Norse mythological figures as well as characters and locations from the "Star Wars" movie series and H.P. Lovecraft's fantasy and horror tales. Might we hear about Mount Loki, the Hoth ice sheet or Cthulhu Crater in the years to come? Will some scientist pick up on the Vulcan connection and start naming the hills of a Plutonian moon after Worf, Quark, Chakotay and T'Pol? To paraphrase another character from the "Star Trek" saga: "Make it so!"
More about planetary names:
- Uwingo aims to create Baby Planet Name Book
- How about better names for alien planets?
- Solar system's not changing — just the lingo
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Are people really that stupid? Pluto was the name of the Roman god of the underworld long before an anti-semitic cartoonist doodled a dog by the same name. It is the former by which the dwarf-planet was named.
You have to ask that question when the answer is fairly obvious? How many people do you think have read Roman or even Greek mythology when compared to the number of people who have seen a Disney cartoon?
You really want to call out Disney's anti-semitism when comparing him to the Romans?
No people are not that stupid. If you mistook what was written in this entry in Cosmic Log then that's your beef. Alan Boyle made it perfectly clear what naming convention was used for Pluto.
And anyway, does it really matter which came first? If Pluto is a dog then what is goofy?
What's wrong with the Romans? To the Romans, the Jews were just another conquered people, no better or worse than the Arabs or the Gauls. Most Roman animosity toward the Jews came from their refusal to accept the Roman gods, an attitude that was not necessarily limited to Jews. Hardcore, directed antisemitism didn't take off until Christianity became the official religion in the 4th Century.
Personally, I'm a little ticked about so many votes for Vulcan. Vulcan had nothing to do with the underworld; it was just a dumb Star Trek plug from Shatner. Plus, as he was a major god himself, it's kind of a snub to name a diminutive moon of a dwarf planet for him. My votes went to Erebus and Acheron, though I wouldn't have minded Orpheus and Euridice.
"What's wrong with" conquering and forcing religion on a people? Um, okay, nothing I guess, it's all cool.
Bobo, the Romans didn't "force" religion on people. They were tolerant of MANY religions which existed in their empire, and they actually had no problem with the beliefs of Jews and Christians, per se. All Roman citizens were expected however, to at least go through the motions of participating in certain state sponsored religious events each year, as these public acts were equated with good citizenship. It was a perceived lack of good citizenship and loyalty to Roman values on the part of Jews and Christians (which Romans tied to the safety and well being of the empire) that lead the Romans to persecute them or give them grief, not which God they honored.
That's super. I'm sure it was wonderful and far better than the suffering the Jews endured under Walt Disney.
The Jews kept rebelling against the Romans and were eliminated from the region by the end of the Bar Kokba rebellion 136AD.
But what does this have to do with the subject at hand?
I wrote in a vote for Loki and Hel his daughter. Yes some Norse gods have whole days named after them, but the Greco-Roman centricity of the IAU, has kept the Aesir out of the heavens.
@Hans, that is until Emperor Constantine had his conclave at the Council of Nicea
I still think that since we're officially dissing the old rock with a demotion to dwarf planet, the least we could do is call these two moons Clyde and Tombaugh after the first chap to identify Pluto.
If you're going to go with Star Trek characters for the hills of a Plutonian moon, my vote is with "7 of Nine".
Nope. That's still too hot..
what like the aliens never watched an old mickey spillane movie!!
glad a lot of people voted for vulcan and cerebus like I did !!
Pluto is now known to have five moons. Because of its small size, it's classified as a dwarf planet. Which, according to the IAU, isn't really a planet at all. Stupid IAU. Not for defining Pluto as a dwarf planet, but for defining "dwarf planets" as not planets at all. Indeed, Pluto/Charon should be formally defined as a binary planet system. Or binary dwarf planet system, if the IAU members must continue to be petty towards this great discovery by an American.
I ask these questions, Mark, about the IAU, well actually only one will do.
Q) Does the IAU have the authority to force average citizens and NON members to accept their faulty definitional of a Planet? The Answer is NO. They are NOT a Government Agency they have absolutely NO power.
The Fact that the Planet Pluto has so many moons seems to elevate it above the verdict of the IAU. As far as naming the moons, I think letting the public do so will rekindle interest in Astronomy and Space Exploration.
And thats my opinion.
A "dwarf planet" is a specific class of planet. Other classes may include gas giants, rocky planets and other classes dependent on the defining characteristics. Back in the 19th century as asteroids were being discovered, the first few were considered planets until it was realized that they were all in the same general area and much smaller than what was first thought. Ceres, Vesta, Juno and the like then became known as asteroids. Definitions change. It is probable that the IAU will alter their definition as more objects are discovered and characterized in the Scattered Belt, the Kuiper Belt and other areas beyond Neptune.
Do you realize that Pluto is not even the biggest dwarf planet out there?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_%28dwarf_planet%29
There are at least thousands of dwarf planets out there, of which almost certainly many are much larger than Pluto :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt
A few years ago there was a push to have Eris formally become the 10th planet of our system.
And no, the IAU is not the overall authority on astronomical type things. Plenty of astronomers still consider and say that Pluto is still a planet.
The "dwarf planet" really isn't the correct term, I believe it's "minor planet and/or planetoid" that the IAU defined. A dwarf planet still can be a full fledged planet just as a rocky or gaseous one can be.
The problem is that the IAU defined a planet with having the condition that it has cleared out it's orbital path of debris and is the dominant player for that defined orbit. This is why they demoted Pluto to minor planet because part of it's orbit lies within the Kuiper Belt. This is a rather fundamental error of the IAU because this also implies that if we happen to find another gas giant on the outskirts of the Kuiper Belt, it too will only be a planetoid under their definition despite the fact it could be twice the size of Jupiter.
There is sort of a division among planetary astronomers: You have one group where they sort of concentrate on the body itself, how it formed, is it geologically active, etc and then you have another group that sort of concentrates on how this body plays out within the star system. This vote in the IAU was sort of a backhanded way for the second group to...puff out their chests so to speak, as far as my understanding goes. It was does at the very end of a conference where a lot of attending professionals had already left. If you were to poll all astronomers, I'm pretty sure they would consider Pluto to be a planet by a large margin.
Mitchell
A gas giant twice the size of Jupiter won't ever be found on the outskirts of the Kuiper belt, because if it existed then the Kuiper Belt wouldn't be there. The giant planet's gravity would've captured or dispersed all the miscellaneous debris in its way. That's basically the point of the "dominant object in its defined orbit" criterion. You can't just say "what if there's a giant planet that hasn't cleared its orbit" because by definition a massive object would clear its orbit. If it didn't, it would mean a serious flaw in our equations of interstellar motion.
Actually no.
Most (if not all) astronomers consider that there is a point where even large bodies cannot clear out an orbit simply because it will take too long (star will die first) or simply because with the distances involved it's just not possible. At this point in time given the distance of the Kuiper Belt, it is very conceivable that given the youth of our system, a large body such as a gas giant would not have had time to clear out it's orbit. In fact, it's been put forth that the Kuiper Belt is just far enough away that orbit clearing just cannot happen, at least the outside portion.
The scenario I put forth is actually a common argument that planetary astronomers have used as a complaint about what the IAU did.
Mitchell
....Neoartica
If there is a mountain on Vulcan, it should be called Mt. Silea.
When you have a naming contest, what would you expect? Who really cares whether Pluto is a dwarf or a planet! Call it what ever makes you happy. The comment about aliens, really do you think aliens were reading about Greek or Roman gods? REALLY!!!!
Haven't you seen 'Who Mourns for Adonais'? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sXJgdx8Lsg
;-P
Maybe aliens were the Greek and Roman gods.
I think the surface features should be named after authors like Clarke, Asimov, Bradbury, Nelson Bond, etc.
If you're going to go Lovecraft, then it MUST be "Yuggoth".
No, no, no..
"Thog"
Who cares? Are you going to visit out there -- ever? What does it really matter?
It matters enough for you to comment on it.
Since there is already a planet called Uranus, I felt that naming one of the moons of Pluto "Urrectum" would be appropriate. However, my vote did not win.
Vulcan and Mickey are just people being stupid.
Cerberus is in keeping with Pluto and one of the few things that make sense given it's cold as hell out there.
"cold as hell". Hmm.
And when we find the first habitable planet with 2 suns, the appropriate name for it would be, of course, Tatoonie.
Tatooine.
Wasn't there an article on cosmic log about that already?
Aw Man! Mickey and Minnie would have been perfect. Astronomers take themselves far too seriously. Who cares about classical names for extraterrestrial objects? A physicist would have gone to Mickey and Minnie immediately, i.e., "quark", "strange", "charm".
Mickey and Mantle would have been better.
I'm surprised at the results of the poll attached to this article. Why would Hoth not be in the lead?
Naming one of Pluto's moons Mickey is just plain goofy.
Discoveries, particularly terra discoveries, are named after the discoverer(s), not childhood fantasies. Why all the foolishness over these space rocks? Especially if Pluto isn't even a planet (anymore). Folly and fools abound!!!