Slashdot Mirror
IAU To Uwingu: You Can't Name That Martian Crater Either
RocketAcademy writes "The International Astronomical Union has thrown a tantrum over a plan to crowdsource names for craters on Mars. The IAU gives official scientific names to craters, but it has only bothered with craters that have 'scientific significance.' The science-funding platform Uwingu has launched a campaign to come up with popular names for the remaining craters. For as little as $5, a member of the public can name one of the craters on Uwingu's map, with the proceeds going to fund space science and education. This caused the IAU to issue a statement condemning such crowdsourcing efforts. The IAU pointed out that it did allow the public to vote on names for two of Pluto's moons, in the past. In that case, however, the IAU rejected the winning name (Vulcan)."
Last year, the IAU got into a spat with Uwingu over naming exoplanets. Sounds like the old name a star scam, on Mars.
and someone to take their money willingly.
That's way better than a crater.
You want the privilege of naming? No problem. But you have to get there first. Put up or shut up, bitch.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
The rancorous debate over what to name celestial bodies strikes me of angelology. Who's going to know what they were named a thousand years from now, and how many times will those names be changed by people yet to be born? I mean, who cares? Let them each keep a different and divergent list of named craters, call them "List A" and "List B", and we'll revisit in 2,000 years and see which names stuck, and whom smelt of elderberries.
Gently reply
Call it whatever you want. If it sticks, it's official. Why should they get the only right to name something?
The reason why the IAU is the body that gets to name celestial objects is international recognition. If every country used its own naming scheme, pretty soon the scientific communication would become a complete muddle.
-Bob-
If you don't want to select your crater yourself, just pick your price level and we'll have a Mars scientist choose a crater for you!
Money for nothing and craters for free
I imagine that using buzzwords like "crowdsourced" means we're not supposed to spot that this is just a way of fleecing people of money for a totally worthless certificate.
Maybe the cause is good. But this method of fundraising is just sleazy.
Why do they get to decide, other than by authority by assertion?
buy the IAU some Wheaties which haven't been pissed in.
Seriously, the IAU is just a private organization with self-appointed powers. Their "official naming rights" are no more official than your's or mine, although their names are more likely to get used.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Where does the IAU get off with this insistence that it has the power to name everything in space, from craters to the smallest boulders. Pompous aholes.
It's amazing that the IAU seems to think that they have the rights to name anything at all. Frankly they have no authority other than it's another drummed up French based "authority" created when Europeans thought they could create such things. Yes, they ponder such things as the definition of a "planet" but still it's not CERN and is only recognized by scientists and astronomers as a de-facto authority, that's all. So really they have no claim to naming things no more than anybody else.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Of course Uwingu can name craters. So can you or I (though the challenge there lies in getting anyone else to use those names). The IAU has no more legal authority to say "you can't call the planet Pluto's newly discovered moon Vulcan", for example, than your local Kiwanis club does. They can only offer guidance that their "industry" tends to take seriously, and the rest of us can completely disregard if we so choose.
So whether or not a bunch of pissy astronomers decide to use Uwingu's names rather than something more poetic like "MC2013B17" has no relevance to the situation.
You can name whatever you like whatever you want. No muss, no fuss, no red tape, no nothing.
Achieving a name recognized by somebody other than you is a somewhat more complex problem, usually requiring a certain amount of give-and-take in terms of "I'll accept your stupid idea if you endure mine" type arrangements.
For all the histrionics about it, Nobody was somehow magically anointed the Super Name Czar by some magically authoritative process. Some organizations have their shit together, and any names in a given domain not endorsed by them are pretty much just private nicknames, some don't; but that's it.
Anyone found anything indicating what percent they will be donating to a tax exempt space organization?
They say they want to get $10 million to that fund.
The cost of a hole in Mars goes for $5 to $5000. They also have another naming purchase plan for exoplanets where it is $4.99 for each person attempting to name it and then $0.99 for each vote for that name, and 1000 votes needed.
Even by the dry standards of academic discourse this is pretty meek:
Recently initiatives that capitalise on the public’s interest in space and astronomy have proliferated, some putting a price tag on naming space objects and their features, such as Mars craters. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) would like to emphasise that such initiatives go against the spirit of free and equal access to space, as well as against internationally recognised standards. Hence no purchased names can ever be used on official maps and globes. The IAU encourages the public to become involved in the naming process of space objects and their features by following the officially recognised (and free) methods.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Otherwise it is just a waste of money. Learned that the hard way ........
Confirmed comets are always named after their first two discoverers; the fact that they also have a catalogue designation for the books doesn't change that.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
The french have a tradition of making themselves the official arbiters of things they don't actually do anything. See also FAI - Federation Aeronautique Internationale, the guys who required the Neil Armstrong to get an FAI Sporting License in order for them to recognize that the Moon Landings took place "officially"
People still keep paying to "register a star" for loved ones, even in full knowledge that the act has no official status, even for the plebeian billions of stars on astro patrol photographs. So why not set up an official, central registry that would auction off naming rights on stars, minor asteroids, minor KBOs, exoplanets, and extraterrestrial mountains and craters. The proceeds would become grants for astronomy and space science. It would be your state's vanity plate registry writ cosmically large.
Let the human ego pay for the telescopes and probes that taxpayers won't.