Plutonian craters to be named after Star Trek characters

astrobites ^ | Apr 2, 2015 | Ruth Angus

[vannrox]

n July of this year (2015), NASA’s New Horizons mission will fly past Pluto and its moons. It will map the surface of the Plutonian system in unprecedented detail, revealing craters and other surface features for the first time. In preparation for the deluge of newly discovered craters, mountains, crevasses and other surface features, Mamajek et al. discuss a naming system for Pluto and its moons.

Pluto is one of the last large planetesimals in the Solar system to have its surface imaged in detail. Pluto’s surface features will reveal the history of its life in the alien conditions at the outer-most edge of our Solar system. The images on the right were taken by the Hubble space telescope. They show Pluto’s surface at different times during a single rotation. Fuzzy blobs of colour hint at interesting surface features.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is pretty strict about naming conventions. To name anything in the Solar system you have to submit a naming request which goes through an approval stage. They wouldn’t, for example, like the surface features of pluto to be named after the discoverer’s cats.

When Pluto was discovered back in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, it was named, as was traditional, after a Roman deity: Pluto, the god of the underworld. To continue along the hell theme, the IAU states that the surface features of Pluto should be named after “Underworld deities”. But how many of those can there be? Won’t we run out pretty quickly? And what about different classes and sub-classes of surface features? Take Triton, for example. It’s a moon of Neptune and, arguably the most Pluto-like object in the inner Solar system. On Triton’s surface (which has already been imaged), there are 12 different classes of surface feature. In this white paper,

[Slyfox]

Looks like Gene Roddenberry was at vacationing at Lake Tahoe and was inspired by a pontoon boat he saw being repaired at the marina.

[tet68]

It doesn’t matter what we call it, the Plutonians
have their own names for everything.

[P.O.E.]

Now I’ve got that “Pontoon” song going through my head.

[UnwashedPeasant]

"I thought that it was the other way around. The planet came first, then the cartoon dog."

I was joking, but your comment is interesting. According to Wikipedia, the name was first attached to the cartoon dog in "The Moose Hunt" (1931). Wikipedia continues as follows:

Several months had passed between the naming of what was believed to be the ninth planet, Pluto, on March 24, 1930, and the attachment of that name to the dog character. Venetia Burney (later Venetia Phair), who as an eleven-year-old British schoolgirl had suggested the name Pluto for the planet, remarked in 2006: "The name had nothing to do with the Disney cartoon. Mickey Mouse's dog was named after the planet, not the other way around."[12] Although it has been claimed that Disney named the dog after the planet, rather than after the mythical god of the underworld, this has not been verified. Disney animator Ben Sharpsteen said "We thought the name [Rover] was too common, so we had to look for something else. ... We changed it to Pluto the Pup ... but I don't honestly remember why."[13] Disney says they have no documents to support or refute the connection.[14][not in citation given] Unofficially, even Disney's animators believed that Walt Disney chose the name to capitalize on the sensation of the newly named planet.[15]

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks vannrox. Besides X-Planets, let's ping the APoD list. Sidebar, Paramount's ruined itself, $billions in debt, and two of the core actors of their crappy ST reboot have backed out of what was to be the next movie.

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[umgud]

Thanks for the ping.

[PLMerite]

The Deanna Troi Massif:

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure.

[martin_fierro]

Hoping for some dedicated space on Uranus.

[dfwgator]

Hoping for some dedicated space on Uranus.

To boldly go where many men have been before.