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Astronomers call for renaming the Magellanic Clouds...Explorer Ferdinand Magellan's name is not fitting, a group of scientists argues
Science News ^ | SEPTEMBER 26, 2023 AT 7:00 AM | By Emily Conover

Posted on 10/02/2023 8:50:28 AM PDT by Red Badger

Names have significance, especially when they’re written in the stars.

A group of astronomers is coalescing around an idea to rename two neighbors of the Milky Way, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

Named after explorer Ferdinand Magellan, the satellite galaxies are visible with the naked eye from the Southern Hemisphere. But Magellan’s name is not fitting, astronomer Mia de los Reyes and colleagues argue. The leader of the first expedition to successfully circle the globe, Magellan enslaved and killed Indigenous people encountered on the voyage, which set out from Spain in 1519 (SN: 9/17/19).

“Because we’re naming things in the night sky, which belongs to everyone, we think that it’s important to have names that reflect all of humanity,” says de los Reyes, of Amherst College in Massachusetts. She calls for the name change in an opinion piece published September 12 in Physics. Magellan’s voyage helped pave the way for Spanish colonialism in South America, Guam and the Philippines, says de los Reyes, who is Filipino American. “Many people see Magellan as a villain in the Philippines.”

The Magellanic clouds loom large in the field of astronomy. They’re independent galaxies, but close enough that astronomers can observe the individual stars within (SN: 4/1/22). “The Magellanic Clouds are this amazing laboratory for seeing things up close and personal,” says astronomer Sally Oey of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, a supporter of the name change.

Magellan wasn’t an astronomer. The clouds were noted by a member of his expedition, but they were already well-known to many cultures in the Southern Hemisphere, and even to previous European explorers. “It doesn’t make sense to have them named after any one person, let alone a person who never actually studied them,” says astronomer Gurtina Besla of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; History; Science; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: ageofsail; astronomy; ferdinandmagellan; godsgravesglyphs; magellan; science; virtuesignal
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To: Ezekiel

Give Satan an inch and he’ll become your ruler.....................


61 posted on 10/02/2023 11:04:20 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger

well, rename them jingle and jungle


62 posted on 10/02/2023 11:19:47 AM PDT by mjp (pro-freedom & pro-wealth $)
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To: Red Badger; Rennes Templar
Give Satan an inch and he’ll become your ruler.....................

True words of the wise!

All the more reason not to let him into your yard. He'll really stick it to you.

63 posted on 10/02/2023 11:24:03 AM PDT by Ezekiel (🆘️ "Come fly with US". Ingenuity -- because the Son of David begins with Mars ♂️, aka every man)
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To: Red Badger
The astronomers are now trying out new names. One popular suggestion is to call them the “Milky Clouds.” That would maintain the commonly used acronyms, LMC and SMC. And it would reflect the galaxies’ connection to something much bigger than any one person — the Milky Way.


64 posted on 10/02/2023 11:28:54 AM PDT by Ezekiel (🆘️ "Come fly with US". Ingenuity -- because the Son of David begins with Mars ♂️, aka every man)
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To: Ezekiel

Milk is white and everything white is racist, so, no.....................


65 posted on 10/02/2023 11:38:15 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger
It looks like woke has come to astronomy. 🐂💩!
66 posted on 10/02/2023 12:22:27 PM PDT by telescope115 (I NEED MY SPACE!!! 🔭)
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To: metmom

They are trying so desperately to erase ALL of our culture and history

…and replace it with their own version. Pretty soon they’ll want to re-name the lunar craters, the planets, and God knows what else.


67 posted on 10/02/2023 12:25:42 PM PDT by telescope115 (I NEED MY SPACE!!! 🔭)
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To: telescope115

Affirmative action ==> woketards in places they don’t belong.

Notice that both of the little tw@ts cited in the article are “diverse” people being “included” to promote “equity”.


68 posted on 10/02/2023 12:27:54 PM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: NorthMountain

The punk is still wet behind the ears.


69 posted on 10/02/2023 12:32:41 PM PDT by telescope115 (I NEED MY SPACE!!! 🔭)
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To: NorthMountain

Yeah, they’ve probably got new names for the constellations all picked out as well.


70 posted on 10/02/2023 12:38:01 PM PDT by telescope115 (I NEED MY SPACE!!! 🔭)
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To: xp38
How can we be sure that Cepheus, Hercules and Perseus were not slave owners? Maybe those constellations need to be renamed. And why are there more constellations named for males than for females?

We need to find out who the first human was who noticed the Magellanic Clouds in the sky and name them in her or his honor.

71 posted on 10/02/2023 12:39:49 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Red Badger
This is what happens when they force science students to take some "social" courses in order to graduate. Their brains aren't geared for pure BS, and they start accepting it as fact, like they're used to in their own fields.

"Poor little things, they never knew what hit them."

72 posted on 10/02/2023 1:07:46 PM PDT by Moltke (Reasoning with a liberal is like watering a rock in the hope to grow a building.)
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To: Ezekiel

So true on the ruler concept. Just don’t give him a foot - hold.


73 posted on 10/02/2023 1:09:58 PM PDT by Rennes Templar (Come back, President Trump.)
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To: Ezekiel

There are various origin myths about the “river” of stars in the sky known as the Milky Way but the most well known and why it is called that is the Greek one...

From wiki

The Greek name for the Milky Way (Γαλαξίας Galaxias) is derived from the Greek word for milk (γάλα, gala). One legend explains how the Milky Way was created by Heracles (Roman Hercules) when he was a baby.[15] His father, Zeus, was fond of his son, who was born of the mortal woman Alcmene. He decided to let the infant Heracles suckle on his divine wife Hera’s milk when she was asleep, an act which would endow the baby with godlike qualities. When Hera woke and realized that she was breastfeeding an unknown infant, she pushed him away and the spurting milk became the Milky Way.


74 posted on 10/02/2023 1:12:03 PM PDT by xp38
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To: xp38

Thanks. The mega round-up for the traditions is in this classic:

Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning
Richard Hinckley Allen

>>>

In Germany the modern Milch Strasse is the translation of our best-known title; while it has long been, and popularly is even now, Jakobs Strasse and Jakobs Weg, Jacob’s Road; as the Belt of Orion is his Staff lying alongside the road. And it has been still further associated with that patriarch as his Ladder.

<<<

https://www.constellationsofwords.com/the-milky-way/


75 posted on 10/02/2023 1:45:13 PM PDT by Ezekiel (🆘️ "Come fly with US". Ingenuity -- because the Son of David begins with Mars ♂️, aka every man)
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To: Rennes Templar

Don’t give him a foothold indeed.

That’s how people lose their soles.


76 posted on 10/02/2023 2:26:04 PM PDT by Ezekiel (🆘️ "Come fly with US". Ingenuity -- because the Son of David begins with Mars ♂️, aka every man)
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To: Red Badger
[redacted comment]
Thanks Red Badger.

77 posted on 10/02/2023 2:26:22 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (NeverTrumpin' -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)
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To: Ezekiel

True, and Satan will go to any length to tempt.


78 posted on 10/02/2023 3:38:00 PM PDT by Rennes Templar (Come back, President Trump.)
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To: Red Badger

Wait until they find out Galileo was Catholic.


79 posted on 10/02/2023 3:41:07 PM PDT by muir_redwoods (Freedom isn't free, liberty isn't liberal and you'll never find anything Right on the Left)
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To: Red Badger

First of all, Magellin was killed by a Filipino warlord, Lapulapu. Magellin cut deals with local rulers, but the islands weren’t colonized by him. His successor, Legazpi started that process forty years later.

Next, before the Spanish ever conceived of the Philippines, the islands were conquered by Hindu, then Muslim invaders. Then, the Chinese exercised significant hegemony over the Philippines, both diplomatically and via forced migration, using it as a barrier from and negotiating point with the Spanish.

History just isn’t so neat and clean as all the modern haters would have it.


80 posted on 10/02/2023 4:59:55 PM PDT by nicollo ("This is FR!")
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