Skip to footer

What should we name Pluto's new moon?

Scientists examining data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have spotted a fifth moon orbiting Pluto. The moon is currently labeled S/2012 (134340) 1, a monicker that could probably be improved. 

|
NASA/AP/File
This 2006 image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows Pluto and three of it's moons. A team of scientists using the telescope said Wednesday that they have discovered the tiniest moon yet around Pluto. That brings the number of known moons to five.

Planetary scientists have spotted a fifth moon orbiting the dwarf planet Pluto. The petite satellite — it measures just 6 to 15 miles across — showed up in new photos of the Pluto system taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

This newest member of the solar community currently goes by the unprepossessing label "S/2012 (134340) 1." Clearly, it's in desperate need of a name. What will astronomers christen it?

It can't be named just anything under the sun. As usual with newly discovered astronomical objects, S/2012 (134340) 1's name will be subject to a tough selection process overseen by an organization called the International Astronomical Union. IAU guidelines specify that "objects crossing or approaching the orbit of Neptune … notably [Pluto and its moons], are given mythological names associated with the underworld."

Pluto was the god of the underworld in Roman mythology. Charon, the largest of Pluto's moons, is named after the mythical ferryman who carried the souls of the newly deceased across the River Styx, which separated the world of the living from that of the dead. Nix, Pluto's second-closest moon, was the Greek goddess of darkness and night, and Charon's mother. Hydra, the third closest to Pluto, was a many-headed serpent that guarded a back entrance to the underworld located deep below the surface of a lake. [Why Doesn't Earth's Moon Have a Name?]

The dwarf planet's fifth moon needs a name along these hellish lines, and so does its unnamed fourth moon, which was provisionally designated P4 at the time of its discovery last July. The IAU nomenclature committee will try to honor the wishes of the two moons' discovery team, which includes Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

So, what's his choice? "There are dozens of ideas but nothing is close to settled," Stern told Life's Little Mysteries. He said he prefers to defer the decision until his team finishes mining the Hubble data in search of additional moons orbiting Pluto.

"When we discovered P4, I was on the side of advocating waiting to see if we discovered more moons and then naming them as a group, like we did with Nix and Hydra," Stern said.

If no more moons are spotted, then the two new foundlings will likely be named for an "underworldly" mythological duo. Know any?

Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.

Copyright 2012 Lifes Little Mysteries, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to What should we name Pluto's new moon?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0711/What-should-we-name-Pluto-s-new-moon
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe