New Alien Worlds and the Naming of Names
Brian Trent
April 29, 2007
I still remember the strange little sentence drilled into my head by elementary schoolteachers:
My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles.
That was the third-grade way of remembering the planets -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Bellowing those names aloud was more than a recitation of our celestial neighborhood; it also meant dipping my hands into the mythology which named them. The Romans, who envisioned a unique personality for each world, also gave us the very word we use to describe them: straight from the Latin – planetas – the wandering points of light along Night’s flowing robe.
When I was growing up there were nine planets. In August 2006, word came down that our block party is subtracted by one. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) came up with a new definition of planets and established a subcategory: the pluton. It is to this new gang that Pluto (and a host of other objects in the solar system like a far-out little rock called 2003 UB313) has been assigned. But there’s contention. Many astronomers favor an entirely different definition of what a planet is, and under its specs not only would Pluto be welcomed back to the party, but it would bring three friends (including that crazy guy, 2003 UB313.)
Now let me be honest here. My world doesn’t change much if there are eight, nine, or twelve planets in the solar system. And every few months, astronomers catalogue entirely new worlds in nearby systems. We’ve crested 100 alien neighbors and counting; in April of this year, an international team of astronomers from Switzerland, France and Portugal announced the discovery of the first-ever Earth-like planet outside our Solar System a mere 20 light-years away. Rest assured that this is just the tip of the galactic iceberg. As telescopic techniques continue to improve we'll soon confirm that Earth-sized worlds in that precious "Goldilocks zone" (neither too far away from their star nor too close) are quite common. 20 light-years is just the other side of town in celestial terms. It certainly seems like a good place to start the confirmation process of what the ancient Greek writer Metrodorus, 2,400 years ago, declared: "To assume that the Earth is the only inhabited world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that on a vast plain only one stalk of grain will grow."
My inner child rejoices at news like this, perhaps the way 17th century children drooled over the prospect of seeing new lands sprout onto world maps.
But really now... 2003 UB313? Is that a name or an item number from a QVC catalogue? And those 100 alien worlds out there? Why, they’ve been christened such memorable titles as HD 164922b and HD 107148b... and how dare we forget HIP 14810?
How poetic.
Personally, I think astronomers are ignobly ignored in popular culture, so I don’t want to knock them too hard. The quest they undertake is both remarkable and practical. From space tourism to resource mining to blasting away pesky asteroids, astronomy is a noble science which has primarily helped give us a grand understanding of the universe.
So when our computers have finished cataloguing newfound worlds like HD 164922b and HD 107148b, let’s call upon the ancestor cultures which began this journey long ago.
Why not a solar system named exclusively after Egyptian deities – Osiris, Isis, Thoth, and Set... with a sun-baked world named Ra? Cold worlds might find names in the chilly Nordic wellsprings of Odin or Freya (a culture which has already given us most of our days of the week – Thor’s Day and Tiu’s Day.) New gas giants might be called Tiamat after the wrathful cosmic dragon of Sumerian cosmology to remember the culture which invented writing and pioneered astronomy, while unusually beautiful worlds could find celestial tags as Ishtar, Isis, or Dionysus. The Chinese creator Pan Gu, the Hindu destroyer Shiva, the Greek deity Apollo, the Mongolian Lord of the Winds Mongre Tenki, and the Japanese Raiden could all find homes in the gulf of stars. And when we eventually exhaust this vast repository, fistfuls of worlds might be called Newton, Sagan, Galileo and Bruno after the ones who courageously pried beyond superstition into science.
I’m sorry, but a universe dotted with numbers does more than offend the poet in me. It divides us from our earliest wellsprings of adventure, inspiration, and passion. Computers awaken me each morning, sort my email, tell me the time, and organize my expenditures, but I won’t have them naming the heavens. That’s our job, and like the Olympic torch from ancient Greece we need to keep passing it from hand to hand, generation to generation ad infinitum.
Why is it important? Because the story of civilization has been the greatest story ever told, far eclipsing the raw might of dinosaurs or trilobite beaches. In record time, my species has climbed up the survival ladder to become masters of this world, yet the fires we used to cook our meats and warm our caves are nothing to the fires of our dreams.
And it’ll be a lot easier to teach our young ones, too. The educated mother serving her children nine pickles will appreciate it.
Copyright 2007 Brian Trent
My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles.
That was the third-grade way of remembering the planets -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Bellowing those names aloud was more than a recitation of our celestial neighborhood; it also meant dipping my hands into the mythology which named them. The Romans, who envisioned a unique personality for each world, also gave us the very word we use to describe them: straight from the Latin – planetas – the wandering points of light along Night’s flowing robe.
When I was growing up there were nine planets. In August 2006, word came down that our block party is subtracted by one. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) came up with a new definition of planets and established a subcategory: the pluton. It is to this new gang that Pluto (and a host of other objects in the solar system like a far-out little rock called 2003 UB313) has been assigned. But there’s contention. Many astronomers favor an entirely different definition of what a planet is, and under its specs not only would Pluto be welcomed back to the party, but it would bring three friends (including that crazy guy, 2003 UB313.)
Now let me be honest here. My world doesn’t change much if there are eight, nine, or twelve planets in the solar system. And every few months, astronomers catalogue entirely new worlds in nearby systems. We’ve crested 100 alien neighbors and counting; in April of this year, an international team of astronomers from Switzerland, France and Portugal announced the discovery of the first-ever Earth-like planet outside our Solar System a mere 20 light-years away. Rest assured that this is just the tip of the galactic iceberg. As telescopic techniques continue to improve we'll soon confirm that Earth-sized worlds in that precious "Goldilocks zone" (neither too far away from their star nor too close) are quite common. 20 light-years is just the other side of town in celestial terms. It certainly seems like a good place to start the confirmation process of what the ancient Greek writer Metrodorus, 2,400 years ago, declared: "To assume that the Earth is the only inhabited world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that on a vast plain only one stalk of grain will grow."
My inner child rejoices at news like this, perhaps the way 17th century children drooled over the prospect of seeing new lands sprout onto world maps.
But really now... 2003 UB313? Is that a name or an item number from a QVC catalogue? And those 100 alien worlds out there? Why, they’ve been christened such memorable titles as HD 164922b and HD 107148b... and how dare we forget HIP 14810?
How poetic.
Personally, I think astronomers are ignobly ignored in popular culture, so I don’t want to knock them too hard. The quest they undertake is both remarkable and practical. From space tourism to resource mining to blasting away pesky asteroids, astronomy is a noble science which has primarily helped give us a grand understanding of the universe.
So when our computers have finished cataloguing newfound worlds like HD 164922b and HD 107148b, let’s call upon the ancestor cultures which began this journey long ago.
Why not a solar system named exclusively after Egyptian deities – Osiris, Isis, Thoth, and Set... with a sun-baked world named Ra? Cold worlds might find names in the chilly Nordic wellsprings of Odin or Freya (a culture which has already given us most of our days of the week – Thor’s Day and Tiu’s Day.) New gas giants might be called Tiamat after the wrathful cosmic dragon of Sumerian cosmology to remember the culture which invented writing and pioneered astronomy, while unusually beautiful worlds could find celestial tags as Ishtar, Isis, or Dionysus. The Chinese creator Pan Gu, the Hindu destroyer Shiva, the Greek deity Apollo, the Mongolian Lord of the Winds Mongre Tenki, and the Japanese Raiden could all find homes in the gulf of stars. And when we eventually exhaust this vast repository, fistfuls of worlds might be called Newton, Sagan, Galileo and Bruno after the ones who courageously pried beyond superstition into science.
I’m sorry, but a universe dotted with numbers does more than offend the poet in me. It divides us from our earliest wellsprings of adventure, inspiration, and passion. Computers awaken me each morning, sort my email, tell me the time, and organize my expenditures, but I won’t have them naming the heavens. That’s our job, and like the Olympic torch from ancient Greece we need to keep passing it from hand to hand, generation to generation ad infinitum.
Why is it important? Because the story of civilization has been the greatest story ever told, far eclipsing the raw might of dinosaurs or trilobite beaches. In record time, my species has climbed up the survival ladder to become masters of this world, yet the fires we used to cook our meats and warm our caves are nothing to the fires of our dreams.
And it’ll be a lot easier to teach our young ones, too. The educated mother serving her children nine pickles will appreciate it.
Copyright 2007 Brian Trent
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