10 Weird Rules That Control How We Name the Planets

Astronomers are particular people , but few are more finicky than the members of the International Astronomical Union . The IAU dictates everything from whether or not something stipulate as a major planet , to what that major planet ( or non - planet ) can be called .

The IAU is also in cathexis of something call global nomenclature , or the official public figure that stargazer bestow on landmarks or features on the surfaces of cosmic objects . The rule of worldwide terminology are extensive , and surprisingly specific . Here ten of the most interesting , peculiar , and contradictory rules of the tidy sum .

10 . Keep matter ApoliticalAccording to the IAU ’s most canonical list ofRules and Conventions , “ no names stimulate political , military or spiritual meaning may be used . ” The reasoning behind this seems pretty obvious . name a planetary feature article after something with inflammatory potential is never a dear idea . Besides , that’swhatwehaveairports for .

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9 . Unless it ’s erstwhile political science . Or old god . Political figures from “ prior to the nineteenth century ” ? Totally fair game — as is somewhat much any Supreme Being from a religion that has a ) break out , or b ) is n’t wide practice . Examples of this elision abound . Think about it : every planet in our solar organization ( save for Earth ) is named after a Greco - papist god or goddess . Deities are used for terminology purposes all the time . Some of these gods can be pretty vague , but that does n’t mean there are n’t people who worry about the employment of their names . Which is why :

8 . It ’s Nice to Ask PermissionThis is credibly something of an unspoken linguistic rule , but it ’s definitely the right thing to do . The IAU maintains that any object in theKuiper beltmust be named after a existence deity . When Mike Brown ( the stargazer far-famed forkilling Pluto ) , and his confrere Chad Trujillo discovered an object in the Kiuper belt that was half the size of what was once our solar system ’s 9th planet , they named it “ Quaoar , ” after an crucial figure in the instauration myth of California ’s Tongva tribe , which still exists today . In instances like this , uranologist should feel compelled to ask license to habituate the name . write Brown :

We did n’t know anyone in the Tongva tribe , but Chad went to www.tongva.com , found a speech sound number , and forebode it . The chief do . Chad enunciate something like , “ Hi , I ’m an uranologist from Caltech , and we just discovered something big in this region of space called the Kuiper belt and were hop-skip to name it after a Tongva creation myth and need to babble to you about it , ” at which dot the foreman likely thought there was a moderately good chance that Chad was a lunatic rather than an astronomer from Caltech . Perhaps to hedge his bets , or perhaps just to get rid of Chad as speedily as possible , he gave the name of the tribal historiographer and primary dancer , who would be a best person to talk to about such matter .

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Chad made the next phone call . After Chad convince the tribal historial that he was not a brainsick person but was indeed an uranologist who had found something half the sizing of Pluto that needed a name , the Tongva agreed that Kwawar — or rather Quaoar , their preferred spelling — was the appropriate name .

7 . Being commemorate is HardTo have your name officially considered for memorialization in the form of a planetary feature , the IAU advises you to be “ of high and put up outside standing . ” You also have to be dead ( for at least three long time ) .

6 . Some of the Best Names Are n’t Even OfficialPlenty of cosmic objects and features go by unofficial gens before they ’re officially recognized . Eris — the dwarf satellite , also discovered by Mike Brown , that helped shove Pluto off the precipice of planethood — went by “ Xena ” ( after television set ’s warrior princess ) before it went by its prescribed designation .

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Likewise , the IAU states that “ features whose longest attribute is less than 100 meters are not assigned prescribed names unless they have exceptional scientific sake . ” The resultant role is a long list of little planetary feature of speech with unofficial cognomen opt by members of the teams responsible for detect them . For an estimate of the kind of names team members come up with , turn back outthis all-embracing list of rocks on Mars . Highlights include “ Space Ghost , ” “ Zorak , ” “ Marvin the Martian , ” “ Darth Vader ” ‘ Indiana Jones ” and “ Cookies N Cream . ”

5 . humble Crater , lowly VillageMartian craters measuring less than 60 km in diameter must be named after villages of the macrocosm with a universe smaller than 100,000 people . This is the rule that gives us such splendid public figure as the adorable - sound and strangely fitting “ Tooting crater , ” identify after the eponymic London suburb . ( There is no reference of what happens when a town grow to a universe of more than 100,000 , but the legitimate conclusion is that we either blow the volcanic crater up , or force people to forget the village . DO NOT query THE IAU ABOUT ITS rule . )

4 . Big Valley ? Just Call it Venus . Venusian valleys more than 400 km long are simply call “ Venus,”but in a different words . This is where we get awe-inspiring sounding feature gens likeApisuahts Vallis(Apisuahts being the Blackfoot / Algonquin name for planet Venus);Citlalpul Vallis(Aztec for major planet Venus ) ; andKallistos Vallis(Ancient Greek name for satellite Venus ) . Smaller valley , in contrast , are name after river goddesses .

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3 . Otherwise , Size Does n’t MatterGenerally speaking , the IAU appointment prescript for a wandering feature film remain the same disregardless of its size ; the vale and craters of Venus and Mars are the exception to this rule .

2 . No Penis on VenusEvery single part of Venus — from tesserae , to chasmata , to the planet itself — must be name after a woman . If you want a lineament on the Morning Star cite in your honour , you ’d well not have a todger in towage .

1 . … Unless it ’s Old PenisThe one exception to the moratorium on male members ? Maxwell Montes , nominate afterJames Clerk Maxwell , which was approved in the tardy seventy — before the female person - only Venutian naming rules came into essence . The other two renowned exceptions to the rule are Alpha Regio and Beta Regio , two formations named after the first letters of the Greek ABCs . They , too , were nominate before the convention of female name was adopt .

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