Jupiters Moons Get New Names

[Yillara Skye 1]

THis is in the light of the new moons of Jupiter taht were recently discovered. This is from an Astronomy.com article that was posted in December, but for those who have not seen it....here it is

 

Click the link at the bottom for the entire article.....

 

The 11 new names were proposed by German amateur astronomer Jürgen Blunck, who "suggested that we now go to children or other relatives of the lovers," Owen relays.

 

Blunck didn't help discover any of these moons, but has assisted the IAU with naming Jupiter's satellites in the past. "When we started the IAU nomenclature work in the '70s, one of my group's first tasks was to name several moons of Jupiter that at that time only had numbers," Owen says. "Blunck was very helpful to us at that time as well, pointing out that we could use names with different endings to designate satellites in direct and retrograde orbits." (The main prograde satellites have names that end in "a," while retrograde satellites' names end in "e." A newfound group of prograde satellites, including the newly named Themisto, will have names that end in "o.")

 

All but one of the 11 satellites were found in 2000 by a group led by Scott Sheppard of the University of Hawaii. (One of these was a satellite spotted and then lost by Charles Kowal in 1975.) The University of Arizona's Spacewatch program and the Minor Planet Center in Massachusetts discovered the other in 1999. The Hawaii group found eleven more jovian satellites in 2001 and, according to Sheppard, is considering names for this new batch.

 

The designations announced in October aren't completely official until the IAU General Assembly approves them at its next meeting in July 2003. But "the General Assembly has never refused to approve WGPSN names," reports Owen.

 

 

The old and new titles are:

 

S/1999 J1 = Jupiter XVII = Callirrhoe

S/2000 J1 = S/1975 J1 = Jupiter XVIII = Themisto

S/2000 J2 = Jupiter XXIII = Kalyke

S/2000 J3 = Jupiter XXIV = Iocaste

S/2000 J4 = Jupiter XXV = Erinome

S/2000 J5 = Jupiter XXII = Harpalyke

S/2000 J6 = Jupiter XXVI = Isonoe

S/2000 J7 = Jupiter XXVII = Praxidike

S/2000 J8 = Jupiter XIX = Megaclite

S/2000 J9 = Jupiter XX = Taygete

S/2000 J10 = Jupiter XXI = Chaldene

 

New Name For Jovian Moons-Astronomy.com

[xenexian 2]

Instead of always naming new objects with mythological names why can't the science community show a bit of a sense of humor and name them something like einey, meeny, miney, moe, larry and curly, or something like that. It just might draw a few people into looking up everynow and them. And it would be kind of fun to hear some astronomer talk about the conjunction of curly with einey. I only say this because I'm getting a little worn out with always trying to find out where these names come from in the first place.

[Xeroc 0]

Xenexian, what you are talking about has already been done with quarks! (the building blocks of protons, neutrons, pions, sigmas, etc.) There are six quarks: Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Bottom, Top. I would like to see more names like that!

[Yillara Skye 1]

Ah yes the Quarks....they do have rather fun and entertaining names don't they. So much fun that both a physics and a chemistry professor put them on their exams. You could tell when people came upon THAT question! It was like "Quarks have NAMES! Oh, crap I forgot to study that part cause I never ever thought the teacher would REALLY ask us this!!!" It was hilarious...they are really rather easy:Up, Down, Top, Bottom, Charm and Strange.

 

I don't think I could get used to moons with "sillier" names.."Yes, Jupiter has 7 new moons....Sleepy, Happy, Dopey, Doc, Bashful, Grumpy, and ummm" *looks off camera* "psst, hey what was the last one called??" Or "Today Saturn's new moons have been named...let's see, how can one best put them..'You know there's Dasher, and Dancer, and Prancer, and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen...but do you recall the most famous Saturnalian mooooon of all? Rudolph the red surfaced mooon...' " (OK, so I know I got carried away, I just was thinking of how funny it WOULD be to have moons named like that! :blink: :P )

[Jeanway 0]

So which Moon of Jupiter was the movie '2001' filmed on???

[fenriz275 0]

I thimk they just discovered some new moons around Saturn. They're tiny which is why no one could see them from Earth. I bet Jupiter is just hiding some of it's moons from us like Saturn is.

[DrWho42 13]

So which Moon of Jupiter was the movie '2001' filmed on???

255609[/snapback]

Io.

[Jeanway 0]

Must have been one of the OLD Moons : Amalthea, Io, Europa, Ganymede or Callisto.

[WEAREBORG4102 0]

Thanks for the info.