Posted on 11/12/2019 12:50:31 PM PST by 11th_VA
Ultima Thule, the farthest cosmic body ever visited by a spacecraft, has been officially renamed Arrokoth, or "sky" in the Native American Powhatan and Algonquian languages, following a significant backlash over the old name's Nazi connotations.
The icy rock, which orbits in the dark and frigid Kuiper Belt about a billion miles beyond Pluto, was visited by the NASA spaceship New Horizons in January this year, with the first detailed images showing it consisted of two spheres stuck together in the shape of a snowman.
Its technical designation is 2014 MU69 but the New Horizon team initially nicknamed it Ultima Thule (pronounced Tool-ey) after a mythical northern land in classical and medieval European literature described as beyond the borders of the known world.
That name sparked a backlash, however, because it was co-opted by far-right German occultists in the early 20th century as the fabled ancient northern country of the "Aryan" people (the term they used to describe proto-Indo-Europeans).
Their Thule Society later became Adolf Hitler's Nazi party, and the term remains popular in alt-right circles: it is, for example, also the name of a Swedish white-power rock group.
The new official name, which was chosen by the New Horizons team and ratified by the International Astronomical Union, was announced in a ceremony at NASA headquarters Tuesday. A subsequent NASA statement made no mention of the controversy.
(Excerpt) Read more at afp.com ...
The Romans called the Island of Saint Kilda, “Ultima Thule”.
HMMM?
I see they were too lazy to at least find an algonquin word for falling star, or rock in the sky. It makes no sense to call a rock ‘sky.’
This makes Muslims feel better about themselves HOW, exactly?
NAZI = “National Socialist German Workers’ Party”.
Socialist...
Do you get that, liberal leftists????
Socialist = Bernie Sanders, Ajax Occasional Kotex....and many other liberal leftists...
“And yet if it had been named Wakanda they would’ve celebrated NASA’s progressive diversity.”
you got that right..these pukes will never stop until whites are eradicated.
Muslims supported Hitler ... just sayin
Looks like it could haul a howitzer.
Nazis should buy Greenland and all move there.
They should change it to Ah!, the element of surprise because no one expects the Spanish inquisition.
Dune, Arrakis. Desert world. Home of the Fremen. Never a drop of rain. The spice must flow.
CC
Esta mierda otra vez? and now I suppose the perpetually offended will demand that Thule Greenland is renamed, too...
You mean “Blacks”?
They could have renamed it ‘Atzlan’ after another, more politically correct mythical homeland.
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