I'm too lazy to look this up on the NASA site...

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Has the entire world, East, West and Third World, adopted the classical names for the heavenly bodies? I know every culture has their own constellations, and had their own names for the planets, but has "Jupiter", "Io", "Alpha Centuri", "Mercury", et. al. completely won out on a global level? Do the Chinese, for instance, insist on their own planetary names? Does Indochina name Saturn's moons after local animals?

I know we've never named the moon or the sun (because they were never, techincally, "discovered"), but has anyone else? I'm talking about something that survives in wide common usage -- not something some idiot pagan tribe used in 1431.

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I think we should name the sun and moon, by the way. Now that we've begun mapping and naming other planetary systems I think it's awfully conceited to refer to our star and satellite as THE sun and THE moon. I'm taking suggestions. Names shuold reflect the same sort of western mythology that the rest of the system maintains, even though all the good ones (Zeus/Jupiter, Chronus/Saturn, etc.) have been taken.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Going with the obvious...

The Sun: Apollo
The Moon: Phoebe

"What time does Apollo rise?"

"Did you see that full Phoebe last night?"

Works for me.

 

[Mischka]

Do the names have to reflect Western Mythology? Because if we're open to any and all suggestions, then I propose opening a bidding war and let international megocorporations name the Sun and the Moon after themselves or a product. We could do year long licensing agreements, and put the money towards fighting disease, famine, etc. The Coca Cola Sun, helping to rebuild earthquake shattered countries. Or Microsoft Moon, making the world a safer place for kids.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

I'm all for symmetry. I say we stick to Greek Mythology. Apollo was the sun god, and Phoebe was the moon goddess. It makes the moon seem less dead and the sun less threatening. So I'm going with Apollo and Phoebe. Much better than Sol and Doris Finkelstein, my second choices.

 

[Azwed]

Umhh aren't they already named

I am pretty sure the sun is refered to as Sol and the moon Luna. Our system is named the Sol system whenever I have seen it refered to officialy.

 

[Thomas Paine]

I think it's all left-wing propaganda.

 

[JazzManJim]

There are names.

The sun is Sol and the moon is Luna. There's actually an international convention of astronomers who give the heavenly bodies official names, insofar as they have names.

Generally, when it comes to stars, the ones which are named remain so, and the others are given pretty boring-sounding names. Those names are made from the constellation in which they reside, then the stars are ranked and given a letter of the Greek alphabet. This is where you get Alpha Centauri. It's the first star in the constellation Centaurus.

The group which holds responsibility for the coordination of this effort is the International Astronomical Union at http://www.iau.org/IAU/.

I knew all that amateur astronomy would pay off in the end

 

[CelestialBody]

 

[Guru]

 

[OUTSIDER]

I understand the legal arrangment is this........

"Finder's namer's.........Non-finders....er.....fuck off"

 

[JazzManJim]

Just about right.

I understand the legal arrangment is this........

"Finder's namer's.........Non-finders....er.....fuck off"

That's pretty much true for Comets and ASteroids. The finder either gets the object named after him/her/them (like in Comets Hyakutake, Halley, and Shoemaker/Levy), or they get to name then (as in asteroids Demeter and Pallas).

Still, the naming convention for bigger bodies stays with the IAU. Oddly enough, in naming asteroids, they tend to stick to the Greek and Roman mythologies for names.