Sour Grapes

Help name the anti-Pluto's moon

The anti-Pluto—the large Kuiper Belt object named Orcus—is similar to Pluto in many ways: similar sizes; each with a single known moon; possibly similar origins; and, most strikingly, similar orbits in size, apsides (i.e., perihelion and aphelion) and [rather large] inclination. They are different in one glaring respect: Pluto and Orchus have, and will always have, exactly opposite positions in their respective orbits. As I understand it, this is due to their orbits being regulated by Neptune, with both orbs "circling" (ellipsing?) the sun twice for every three orbits of Neptune (making each a plutino).

Orcus was discovered in 2004 and its moon in 2005. The latter has only just recently come to need naming (presumably the former will also become the sixth official dwarf planet before too long). Mike Brown, of Caltech's Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, has an extremely interesting entry in his Mike Brown's Planets blog that talks about this need to name Orcus's moon and that invites submission of names, with rationales. Be sure to read at least some of the comments, which are full of suggestions (there are 249 as of this writing). I was hoping to have a stab at it myself, but I'm far too ignorant of mythology [via today's Astronomy Picture of the Day].

Original post by Namenlosen Trinker at 3/25/2009 08:05:00 PM Eastern time :: 1 comment(s) ::

1 comment(s):

Do not worry about your difficulties with mythology. I assure you, mine are much greater.

There are an awful lot of posts on that blog invoking Tolkein and other science-fiction/fantasy authors. But the International Astronomical Union has definite rules for definite reasons. We can't invoke modern authors for the names of objects in our own Solar system.

Why not?

Because we need those names for objects detected by the Kepler mission, that's why! Kepler is looking for, not the planets of other stars, but for their shadows. This reveals the existence of the planets themselves. Any that resemble Earth will need names.

Incidentally, if you look at some of the other posts on Mike Brown's blogs, you will find out about a fascinating project that is going on right now. Mike has discovered that one of the moons of another object he discovered, Haumea, is cutting in front of and behind the object. This will give a very precise determination of the size of that object; once that's known, all kinds of other facts about the object can be reconstructed. The name of that post is "Moon Shadows Galore". Check it out.

-Michael C. Emmert

Comment posted by mikeemmert at 26 March, 2009 08:03