IAU Names Fifth Dwarf Planet Haumea

Kligat writes "The International Astronomical Union has renamed the dwarf planet Haumea and its two moons Hi'iaka and Namaka, after the Hawaiian fertility goddess, the patron goddess of Hawaii, and a water spirit. The cigar-shaped body is speculated to have resulted from its short rotational period of only four hours. Holding up the reclassification of the body as a dwarf planet was a dispute over its discovery between the groups of José Luis Ortiz Moreno and Michael E. Brown."

Comments

Moreno and Brown

[Henry V .009]

This was basically a dirty move by Moreno's team, taking credit for the discovery. The story has appeared on Slashdot before, but here is the Wikipedia entry for Moreno:

Michael E. Brown and his team at Caltech had also had been observing Haumea, and for a longer period of time than Ortiz, but had withheld publication pending securing its orbital parameters. Brown initially supported Ortiz and his team being given credit for the discovery. However, he withdrew that support when it turned out that Ortiz had accessed Brown's public observation logs and research just before announcing the discovery. Ortiz maintained that he only did so to see if this was the same object that his team had been tracking. The IAU awarded credit to Ortiz, as credit is given to the first person to publish or notify the IAU about a discovery, and there was no evidence of impropriety. However, it accepted Brown's suggested name of Haumea rather than Ortiz's Ataecina.

Why not go for the obvious names instead?

[ZarathustraDK]

I mean, the cigar-shaped dwarf-planet Bill and its two moons Hillary and Monica would be easier to remember.

Re:Dwarf Planets should be named after Dwarves

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Don't forget the munchkins! Or are they midgets?

Re:In Dutch...

[4D6963]

Yeah, although that would be awkward if asteroid Haumea/Homo approached Uranus.