What Name Would You Pick for Pluto's Newly-Discovered Moon?

Call it Styx. It fits the underworld theme and fits the prog-rock sensibilities of the Boomers who control the American aerospace industry.

I would consider calling it ‘Neos Alitis,’ or simply ‘Alitis’ for short.

The Greek words ‘Neos Alitis’ can be translated as ‘new wanderer.’

Alitis means wanderer, and is sometimes also translated as ‘true.’

Strictly speaking, wanderer usually applies to planets; the word “planet” is from the Greek “wandering star.”

I’d also be in favor of something more informal, like say ‘Harpo,’ but I know it’ll never fly (just rotate and orbit).

Steve

As a greek..Neos alitis sounds to me stupid and offensive..

alitis in common greeklanguage means punk,,kids on the streets ,and generally is not good word..

If they want they can give an ancient name from greek mythology ..

There are so many names..

I would call it Neptulon, it sounds cool!

Given NASA's current it will likely be named Dinah (as in Dinah the Dachshund - Pluto's girlfriend)

Piv.

We should name it 'GARVER'

That way when Lori Garver leaves her post as Deputy Administrator she can add the fact that she has a moon named after her to her resume when she goes back (YES...GOES BACK - check her ties) to work for one of the commercial space flight companies she's steering money towards.

She would have three major accomplishments in her stint as Deputy Administrator:

1) Deputy Administrator
2) Moon named 'GARVER'
3) Steered billions of dollars away from other space-flight options towards CSF...now I want my cut.

Interviewers like things in threes.

So why can't the rest of us have a say in naming the things in our universe? The IAU is so 20th century. Its time to change this process.

This view is kind of juvenile, Keith. The rest of us needn't have a big role in naming P4 because not only can't we go there, we can't even see it ourselves. P4 has real meaning to the people who will study it. Why, the naming convention of things on Earth is "so 20th century" as well. Tell you what. I get to rename the street you live on. I get to rename the city you live in. Oh, you can't tell me I don't have a right to do that. I'll bet I can trace some federal funding (my money) into your street improvements. That's my money (well, a tiny bit of it) in a fixed pothole out there. Don't worry. It won't be legally binding, so everyone can call it whatever they want.

In fact, as you should know, you can even name a star. Your very own star! I'll direct you to a company that will charge you $25 for a certificate to prove it.

The IAU is an organization that represents a consensus of international astronomers. These are the folks who found P4. People to whom P4 is a real thing. I guess it would be nice if they asked for suggestions about a name, but it would be a little confusing if everyone started calling P4 whatever they wanted. Yeah, that would be so 21'st century! Maybe P4 could get it's own Facebook page and Twitter account. That would make it more real to 21st century denizens. A lot more real than a smudge on an HST image.

I'm in for corporations buying the rights.

My suggestion is that Pluto be renamed Pepsi, and Charon named ad Diet Pepsi. This nicely matches the binary planet nature of the Pluto/Charon system. Then the other moons would be named 7-Up, Gatorade, Mountain Dew and Tropicana.

This scheme could carry out to the asteroids, as I'm sure somewhere there is a Cheeto shaped one.

Goofy.

I always got Pluto and Goofy confused.

Persephone.

Ozzy. He's The Prince of Darkness, and there's already almost a Sharon there.

(Ducks and runs for fear of the Sensible Police)

Bob Shaw

Hmmm... then why do the Mars rover people name all the surface features that they encounter along the way?

That's an easy one. Because they need names NOW. When Opportunity is trying to avoid a rock, they don't want to call it "That-rock-we're-waiting-on the-IAU-to-name". Look, if the IAU decides, in its infinite wisdom, to rename some boulder on Mars, who cares? It's one that is kilometers behind the rovers, and one that the rovers will never see again. Let the historians argue about it.

Why not let the actual discoverers - and the people who pay for these missions - have a chance to name things - and not some self-appointed group whihc answers only to itself?

The people who pay for these missions actually also pay to have people take responsiblity for important things having to do with the missions. I myself have no god-given right to name a moon on Pluto just because a few of my tax dollars helped to find it. As I said, perhaps I really should be able to name your street, since I helped fill a pothole there.

The IAU is not a "self appointed group that answers only to itself". Where do you get that? The IAU is formed of elected representatives from the science community. It has established statues and by-laws. No, it doesn't answer to you. Why should it? It might listen to you, but it needn't answer to you.

The wired generation seems to think that because the internet lets them be heard, they have something useful to say. Sadly, as can be garnered by 95% of blogs and forum posts, they don't. No, a committee of representatives of the astronomical community has a lot more useful to say in naming astronomical objects than anyone here.

But I do like the idea of selling the naming rights to Pepsi or 7-Up ...

I was thinking, maybe name it Shelby, Nelson, Hutchison or Obama but none of them really capture the essence of the day. So, how about just name it Washington? Cold, barren, lifeless and so far out there nobosy can see what the heck is really going on with it. Perfect.

Thanks for the enlightenment Aggelos.  I feel a little silly now.  I don’t speak Greek, so I’m obviously not familiar with current common usage of the words.  I was trying for something from ancient Greek that had a little dignity, but it seems I got exactly the opposite.  Oh well.

Steve

I am rooting for "Xiphion" - neamed for a wreath of flowers Pluto wore. Though "Thanatos" is pretty good too (Greek personification of Death).

Re: IAU - the IAU is not "self-appointed". Who gave them the right to name objects? We did. The US is a member and support of the IAU through the National Academies of Sciences - a Congressionally chartered organization. IAU was created to foster international cooperation and avoid the naming confusions and arguments of the past. It's not like a bunch of IAU bullies came along and said "you must do what we say or we'll punch you and take your milk money." There are other similar international organizations for other scientific fields.

Are people from the UK allowed to vote Keith? I mean we don't have a space programme so I wouldn't want to cast a vote on something without your permission.

Colbert....

Pandora

Why must we always use these pseudo-scientific / Greek mythology names catering to the esoteric? I vote for: "My Ding-a-Ling"

Cerberus...

the 3 headed dog guarding the underworld..

is there planet with this name?

Hell of a Choice: Cerberus Leads for New Pluto Moon Name

http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/pluto-new-moon-p4-name-cerberus-1870/

i though it myself,,
but other though it too..

"Three-headed Cerberus is Hydra's sibling.

"Cerberus: How could you go wrong with a name like that?" Showalter said. "But, unfortunately, Cerberus is already the name of an asteroid. The IAU balks at the idea of using asteroid names, although it's not necessarily out of the question. Even then, Kerberos, [the spelling that] is closer to the original Greek, would be OK even if Cerberus is not. I don't want to say that's the name we've chosen. There are a lot of interesting names being discussed."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/23/what-should-name-plutos-new-moon/#ixzz1T16TxvHk"

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/23/what-should-name-plutos-new-moon/

Cerberus is already a asteroid..

But the exact spelling in Greek is not Cerberus,or kerberos,,but

Kerveros
We have to be exact..

I'm not sure what this new bit of space ice litter should be named, but Cerebrus is far too significant in the mythology to be squandered on such a trifle.

Maybe the dark lord Newt or perhaps the visionary Dubya might do.

Newt can be emperor of his own world, an arostocratic step above Sy. Exupery's Little Prince. newt can be Big Prince.

Since Dubya stupidly axed the shuttle without a seamless transition to the follow on program , maybe we should name something after him. Then he can move there to clear the brush...

I would call it: "MOON X" :)

Kieth, you're getting a lot of flack but I think you're dead-on. Everyone, no matter where you live look around at cities, streets, and geographic features around you. Who named those things? The people who made/discovered them.

When, in the history of mankind has there ever been a (successful) organization to oversee and regulate the naming of locations? Answer: never. In fact, the idea is rather Orwellian. And before someone brings up agencies like USGS, these agencies act mostly as recorders of names others have already assigned.

It should be up to the discoverer(s) to name what they discover. If a large team then they can have their own process. If there are competing claims then they can decide among themselves or refer to an accepted arbitrator, like the IAU I suppose. Frankly I think most of the names that folks come up with are irrelevant to me, but I'm ok with that, I didn't discover/build them. The discussion we should be having is NASA's penchant for having nested acronyms for everything and changing them every funding cycle while the projects remain essentially the same. Drives me batty.

I believe that in the case of an object that is "discovered", the discoverer gets a chance to propose a name to the IAU. If it meets the requirements, it is usually accepted. Meeting the requirements is a combination of factors such as: the name cannot already be applied to another object; it must match the "theme" for objects or features (e.g., features on Venus are named for women - mythological in most cases, real (but dead and non-controversial) in the case of impact craters).

As for "why do the Mars Rover guys get to name things?" They assign "provisional" names to features they are seeing for the first time so that they can talk about things in real time. If the object is important enough to need a real name, I imagine it is taken up by the IAU whenever they get around to it. Thus something could conceivable change names within the scientific literature if the provisional name wasn't appropriate and thus wasn't approved.

This is a good system. It works. There is no need to change it because Keith thinks it too 20th Century. Without it you have chaos.

There is nothing legally binding not only in the names the IAU uses, but in the IAU's definitions themselves. They violated their own bylaws in the 2006 General Assembly when adopting the resolution that demoted Pluto by putting a resolution on the General Assembly floor without first vetting it by the proper committee. Only four percent of the IAU even voted, as no absentee voting was allowed, and the vote was held on the last day of a two-week conference. Most who voted were not planetary scientists, and their decision was immediately opposed in a formal petition of hundreds of professional astronomers led by New Horizons Principal Investigator Dr. Alan Stern. Three years later, when Stern and like-minded scientists asked the IAU leadership to reopen the debate at its 2009 General Assembly, the leadership flatly refused, and most of the dissenting scientists boycotted the conference.

In contrast to some opinions expressed here, no one ever elected any members of the IAU. Prospective members have to be nominated by exisiting IAU members. Many professional astronomers opt not to join the IAU because of its very closed, archaic, bureaucratic system. Considering the poor job they did with Pluto and their refusal to acknowledge hundreds of experts in the field who have rejected their decision, one could say the IAU has shown itself to be insular and unprofessional and therefore has forfeited the right to be considered THE authority in astronomy. At best, they are one of several such authorities.

There are people on this board who do study planets, both amateur and professional astronomers, so saying "we" never look at these objects or study them is blatantly untrue. Many of us do exactly this.

In 2006, the then IAU president said he wanted the group to reach a planet definition that would work not just for IAU members or even professional astronomers, but for everyone interested in planets worldwide. Unfortunately, their definition failed to do this, and they continue to refuse to recognize their mistakes.

Science does not happen by the decree of an "authority." That is dogma. The IAU can decree that the sky is green, but that doesn't make it any less blue.