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Our Solar System's Nomenclature Wars
RobotRunAmok writes "Plutinos, Centaurs, Cubewanos - the names Detroit has given some of their next gen SUVs? Nope. They are among the many colorful, and, some complain, confusing names which astronomers have given to celestial objects in the last decade. Ever wonder about the system of organization which astronomers use to name new space rocks? Apparently, so have many astronomers, because, according a Yahoo!/Space.com article, it's neither very systematic nor organized. Fear not: some clever star-minded chaps from Oxford and Cambridge have a plan to wring some order from the damp dishrag of astro-nomenclature chaos."
Been there, done that, got a QB10 t-shirt.
Using a numeric system. Let's see... the universe can be 0, stars can be 1, blackholes 2, planets 3, moons 4, asteroids 5, comets 6... That won't be confusing at all.
Ever wonder about the system of organization which astronomers use to name new space rocks?
No.
of the old statue with the inprint "created 274BC".
Of couse they are not very systematic, because the system itself was just devolped while they were given names.
And if you really want a non-nonsense way the address them, there are catalogue-numbers and other ways to refer to them without room for misunderstanding...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
The origin of the word "cubewano" is perhaps the most extreme example of nomenclative amusement among astronomers.
Boy those astronomers are some crazy guys. I should invite them to my next rave.
*All right, just irrational. Or something.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Constellations with stars named with greek letters alpha, beta etc, and their planets with a single numeral. "Alpha Carinae 3". Moons similiarly, "Alpha Carinae 3 b" or something. Forget about the comets and asteroids, they are random generated and you can bump into them anywhere. As long as things go into a nice tree format it'll be simple.
A complex heap of space rocks is entirely another matter. Imagine naming computers connected to Internet in a way that would tell their physical location, operating system and connection speeds. Yeah, you could say those change, but so do the space rocks, colliding into each other or dancing around in gravity wells.
Reminds me of the good chaps in Lapland, where they have place names like "vittumaisenoja", "fucking goddamn river"..
Since in Chemistry the number of protons makes an easy periodic table, that wasn't much of a problem, but with Astronomy one has to consider orbit, mass, content, distance, etc., meaning there is probably a lot more to argue about, and no easily agreeable solution like the periodic table.
Damn, I thought I was good at killing conversation with geek talk. Remind me never to invite an astronomer to a party.
To know that you know what you know, and that you do not know what you do not know, that is true wisdom. --Scooby Doo
I dont think they are talking about singular objects, they still name comments and asteroids pretty randomly at first, then the person who discovers it gets to name it (typically). Like Shoemacher-Levy 9... Stars usually have two names, actually. One is the constellation its in followed by a letter or number to signify its brightness. And the other is a 'given' name, usually after greek mythology or something. So you could have Orion-beta which could be the start Beatleguise(sp). Oh, and I dont actually think beatleguise is orion-beta, but.. you get the idea.
:)
What the article was talking about was the difference between a NEO (Near Earth Object), a Kuiper belt object (really far away), etc. Personally I dont see what all the fuss is about.
-Bill
-Bill
Maybe they'll come up with something else as entertaining.
From the grandfather of the Roman Gods to the butt (pun intended) of most astronomy jokes. How the mighty have fallen.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
It's quite obvious that everything should be called Marclar.
Why not just auction the rights to name the crap off to the highest bidders? Just like our sports arenas. Why not have the IBM moon? How about the McDonalds Asteroid belt? Planet Coca Cola? CapitalOne "No Asshole" Uranus?
ST = Space Thingies.
Perhaps differentiated into:
TSTs = Tiny space thingies.
STSs = Small space thingies.
MSTs = Medium space thingies.
BSTs = Big space thingies.
RBSTs = Really big space thingies.
RRBSTs = Really, really big space thingies.
RRBAQESTs = Really, really big, actually quite enormous, space thingies.
Actually, the best way to solve this problem would be to set up an intergalactic version of ICANN, seeing as how they've done so well with handling domain names...
Yeah, labelling them will give you a vague idea where in the solar system it is. But if you want to be specific, then you're still going to have to look it up to find out exactly which object you're talking about out of the thousands or millions of objects which could be in the same general area.
It's like zip codes. 90001 is a zip code somewhere. I *think* the 9xxxx numbers are out on the west coast. If I *really* need to know where 90001 is, I'll look it up.
Astronomers aren't going to remember every detail of every piece of rock floating between Saturn and Uranus, they're going to have to look it up anyway. Search engines are pretty powerful these days, so what difference will it make what they name the object as long as you can search by criteria?
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
What the article was talking about was the difference between a NEO (Near Earth Object), a Kuiper belt object (really far away), etc. Personally I dont see what all the fuss is about. :)
If a NEO's close to the Earth then it's clearly within our solar system. And if this NEO's within the system then how can it destroy the system from without?
Man, I'm getting confused here waiting for this Revolutions trailer to download. My astronomy and sci-fi is becoming confusd - there must be a glitch in the system messing with my synaptic pathways. Yeah, that's it. That or I'm getting damn desperate waiting for the third movie to come out.
(Oh, and remember, it's Thursday and it's The Matrix so it's OK not to hate the MPAA in this instance. The Slashdot Geek FAQ says so.)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
...begins with:
MST = Medium Space Thingies (formerly known as tiny, but that wasn't good for marketing),
and then continues with:
BST = Big Space Thingies.
XBST = Extra Big Space Thingies.
KSST = King Size Space Thingies (always written with small crowns replacing the dots over the i:s).
SSKS = SuperSized King Size Space Thingies (ditto, but has to be written in a larger, blinking red text).
Then, of course, there are the Kids' Space Thingies, which are quite small and come with plastic Disney figures.
I have a life. I really do. I've just chosen to ignore it.
That way they can keep reusing the same name and also provide more information on its location.
So now something like the earth would be refered to as 'milkyway.sol.earth' the earth's moon is 'milkyway.sol.earth.moon'.
Sometimes three. The very brightest stars get given a proper name and are either Greek, Roman or even Arabic in origin. Naturally, very, very few stars get given a proper name.
The letter-number system you're talking about is the Bayer System (named after German astronomer, Johann Bayer) and works much as you described. To continue your example, Betelgeuse has the Bayer designation, Alpha Orionis (being the brightest star in the constellation Orion).
The other main system is known as Flamsteed Numbering (named for English Astronomer, John Flamsteed) and works by listing the stars in each constellation by order of right ascension. Betelgeuse is therefore also known as 58 Orionis.
There are other numbering systems but they are only used for non-naked-eye-visible stars.
I am sure there are a few IP6 addresses that could be assigned! I heard a rumour there was enough address space to label everything in the Universe. You can even end up with a hierarchical model. It would be very useful for routing those inter-Galaxy emails. Not as daft as it sounds.
I hope they use Philosophical Language because the last time this was tried, Waterhouse helped Wilkins come up with Real Character.
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Would have thought astronomers would have had a naming convention already, its a pretty "old" science. Perhaps they will adopt something like that used in biological sciences, wherein there are a number of different "codes" [1] [2] [3] by which organisms are named. These codes are currently being challenged by a new system that has many up in arms...
only infrmatn esentil to understandn mst b tranmitd
That's OK, I have it on good authority that Uranus will be renamed in 2636 to Urectum.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Used to deal with all this stuff, It was especially important to us because we lived in Ireland and so we felt we had to promote Edgeworth's case over that upstart Kuiper. Anyway - now I'm in the US, I work as a software developer and.... I DJ at raves all the time these days.
truth is stranger than fiction sometimes
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased