Posted on 04/09/2019 11:16:13 AM PDT by Red Badger
A dwarf planet discovered over a decade ago is the largest body we know of in our solar system without a proper name – but that’s about to change.
Meg Schwamb, an astronomer at Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, and her colleagues have opened a public vote to name the distant world, which is currently known only as 2007 OR10. They have selected three potential names that fit the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) rules on official names for minor planets, and will recommend the winner to the IAU, which will then select the formal name.
So why now, instead of when the researchers discovered OR10 in 2007? “You can’t name something when you don’t know anything about it,” says Schwamb. “When we found it, I knew the orbit and generally the size.” Now, after lots of follow-up observations, we know more than just that it is about 1250 kilometres across and orbits beyond Pluto in the Kuiper belt.
We know that its surface is covered in water ice, with traces of methane ice. When sunlight hits the methane ice, it turns red, which may be why OR10 is one of the reddest rocks in the Kuiper belt. The water ice may have welled up from deep inside OR10 sometime in its past through cryovolcanism.
“It went from being this point of light to a whole world,” says Schwamb. And a world must have a name. The three names Schwamb and her colleagues have proposed are Gonggong, a Chinese water god who caused floods and chaos, Holle, a winter spirit from European folk tales who is associated with fertility and rebirth, and Vili, a Nordic god and brother of Odin. The vote is now open to the public.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Planets by the ancient Romans.................Stars by ancient Arabs................
BOB.........Easily spelled backwards if you can’t remember how to spell it forwards.
EL TRUMPO!!!!
Covfefe World
Based on a similar view from the backside, I’d nominate “moochelle”...
Mine.
2007 OR 10... So, 2015? Or is this not a bitwise planet?
Omicron Persei 8
Upsidaysium.
Next case.
All three names suck.
I submit Phegethon, the husband of Styx.
It’s a blood-red world of frozen water, wandering beyond Pluto.
Or a Band from Chicago.....................
Talos 4.......................
Name it Jupiter so the hugely huge striped planet can be named Trump.
“Dancing lights against the skyyyyyy... Staring blindly into space”
Big Old Round Thing AKA BORT
Winner.
Futurama was chock full of excellent planet names. None better than the renamed Uranus...now called Urectum.
I was going to suggest “Boaty Mc.Boat Face”. But I like yours better.
Eddore.
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