Where Pluto's Surface Feature Names Originated
Pluto Features Given First Official Names, IAU
“Tenzing Montes and Hillary Montes are mountain ranges honouring Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986) and Sir Edmund Hillary (1919-2008), the Indian/Nepali Sherpa and New Zealand mountaineer who were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest and return safely.”
The Real Origin Of Some Notable Pluto Nomenclature, earlier post
“On 10 January 2008 Sir Edmund Hillary, one of two humans to first stand atop Mt. Everest died. I sent Alan Stern, then AA for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate an email: “I hope you name a new, large feature on Mercury after Edmund Hillary – and Tenzing Norgay…” Stern promptly sent an email to MESSENGER PI Sean Solomon saying “Sean-As you may have seen in the past few hours, Sir Edmund Hillary died today. Let’s name prominent features for him and Tenzing Norgay on Mercury. It’s ALL about exploration.” Solomon concurred. Eventually it became clear that the IAU only wanted to name things on Mercury after painters for some unexplained reason.”
– Confusion Over Naming of Features on Pluto, earlier post
– Silly Pluto Food Fights Continue, earlier post
I hope they remember to name something on Pluto for George Mallory and Andrew Irvine who gave their lives on Mount Everest and inspired a generation of mountaineers as a result.
So why are they called “Montes”?
Answer: It’s the Latin name for plural of mountain. Mountain singular would be mons. It was decided to use this nomenclature on other planets. That makes sense I guess to use a “dead” language to be as language-agnostic as possible, particularly since it’s also used in sciences a lot.