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Our Solar System's Nomenclature Wars

Posted by simoniker on from the more-futurama-inspired-names-please dept.

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."

4 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I suggest we rename everything by B3ryllium · · Score: 5, Funny

    Naw. Roman Numerals make it more fun; even better would be mapping hexadecimal to greek letters and using that.

    Omega Omega Epsilon!

    (2 million light-year distant quasar! :)

  2. I hate these kind of questions. by CGP314 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ever wonder about the system of organization which astronomers use to name new space rocks?

    No.

  3. Like the old joke by imsabbel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?
  4. Back in the time of Star Control 2 it was simple by jlehtira · · Score: 5, Informative

    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"..