First official Pluto names approved by IAU

[MaxwellsDemon]

Excerpt (full story at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20170907 )

Tombaugh Regio honors Clyde Tombaugh (1906–1997), the U.S. astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930 from Lowell Observatory in Arizona.

Burney crater honors Venetia Burney (1918-2009), who as an 11-year-old schoolgirl suggested the name "Pluto" for Clyde Tombaugh's newly discovered planet. Later in life she taught mathematics and economics.

Sputnik Planitia is a large plain named for Sputnik 1, the first space satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957.

Tenzing Montes and Hillary Montes are mountain ranges honoring Tenzing Norgay (1914–1986) and Sir Edmund Hillary (1919–2008), the Indian/Nepali Sherpa and New Zealand mountaineer were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest and return safely.

Al-Idrisi Montes honors Ash-Sharif al-Idrisi (1100–1165/66), a noted Arab mapmaker and geographer whose landmark work of medieval geography is sometimes translated as "The Pleasure of Him Who Longs to Cross the Horizons."

Djanggawul Fossae defines a network of long, narrow depressions named for the Djanggawuls, three ancestral beings in indigenous Australian mythology who traveled between the island of the dead and Australia, creating the landscape and filling it with vegetation.

Sleipnir Fossa is named for the powerful, eight-legged horse of Norse mythology that carried the god Odin into the underworld.

Virgil Fossae honors Virgil, one of the greatest Roman poets and Dante's fictional guide through hell and purgatory in the Divine Comedy.

Adlivun Cavus is a deep depression named for Adlivun, the underworld in Inuit mythology.

Hayabusa Terra is a large land mass saluting the Japanese spacecraft and mission (2003-2010) that performed the first asteroid sample return.

Voyager Terra honors the pair of NASA spacecraft, launched in 1977, that performed the first "grand tour" of all four giant planets. The Voyager spacecraft are now probing the boundary between the Sun and interstellar space.

Tartarus Dorsa is a ridge named for Tartarus, the deepest, darkest pit of the underworld in Greek mythology.

Elliot crater recognizes James Elliot (1943-2011), an MIT researcher who pioneered the use of stellar occultations to study the solar system – leading to discoveries such as the rings of Uranus and the first detection of Pluto's thin atmosphere.

 

[Green Baron]

This one got a little lost between Irma and real life star destroyers.

Thanks for the info :-)

[Racescort666]

I was hoping that they would name something after H.P. Lovecraft but I guess there's still time since they said that more names are yet to be approved.

[Codraroll]

Let's hope they approve all the suggested Charon names too. I really like the guidelines they've put down for that one...

(Picture from Wikipedia)

Edited September 10, 2017 by Codraroll

[Grand Ship Builder]

I hoped there was something named after Yuri Gagarin, Apollo, etc.

[Codraroll]

10 minutes ago, Grand Ship Builder said:

I hoped there was something named after Yuri Gagarin, Apollo, etc.

That stuff is all over Luna, or the Moon, depending on how formal you are. The Gagarin crater is 265 km in diameter and almost 5 km deep. 1772 Gagarin is also the name of an asteroid approximately 8 km in diameter. There is also an Apollo crater (also on the Moon), an Apollo asteroid (which later gave name to a class of asteriods commonly known as - you guessed it - the Apollo asteroids), and a variety of other craters named for the individual Apollo astronauts.

I agree that these historical heroes ought to have places named after them, which is why somebody named places after them. But they can't claim the name of every geographical feature out there forever. We have a lot of other deserving candidates too.

Edited September 10, 2017 by Codraroll