by Carl Sagan
Riccioli gave the names Tycho, Kepler and, interestingly, Copernicus to three of the most prominent craters on the Moon. Riccioli himself and his student Grimaldi received large craters at the limb, or edge, of the moon, Riccioli’s being 106 miles across. Another prominent crater is named Alphonsus after Alphonso X of Castile, a thirteenth-century Spanish monarch who had commented, after witnessing the complexity of the Ptolemaic system, that had he been present at the Creation, he could have given God some useful suggestions on ordering the universe. (It is amusing to imagine Alphonso X’s response were he to learn that seven hundred years later a nation across the Western ocean would send an engine called Ranger 9 to the Moon, automatically producing images of the lunar surface as it descended, until finally it crashed in a pre-existing depression named, after His Castilian Majesty, Alphonsus.) A somewhat less prominent crater is named after Fabricius, the Latinized name of David Goldschmidt, who in 1596 discovered that the star Mira varied periodically in brightness, striking another blow against the view championed by Aristotle and supported by the Church that the heavens were unchanging.
Thus the prejudice against Galileo in seventeenth-century Italy did not, in the naming of lunar features, carry over as a completely consistent bias in favor of Church fathers and Church doctrines on matters astronomical. Of the approximately seven thousand designated lunar formations it is difficult to extract any consistent pattern. There are craters named after political figures who had little direct or apparent connection with astronomy, such as Julius Caesar and Kaiser Wilhelm I, and after individuals of heroic obscurity: for example, crater Wurzelbaur (50 miles in diameter) and crater Billy (31 miles in diameter). Most of the designations of small lunar craters are derived from large and nearby craters, as, for example, near the crater Mösting are the smaller craters Mösting A, Mösting B, Mösting C, and so on. A wise prohibition against naming craters after living individuals has been breached only occasionally, as in assigning a few quite small craters to American astronauts of the Apollo lunar missions, and by a curious symmetry in the age of détente, to Soviet cosmonauts who remained behind in Earth orbit.
In this century an attempt has been made to name, consistently and coherently, surface features and other celestial objects by giving this function to special commissions of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the organization of all professional astronomers on the planet Earth. A previously unnamed bay of one of the lunar “seas,” examined in detail by the American Ranger spacecraft, was officially designated Mare Cognitum (the Known Sea). It is a name not so much of quiet satisfaction as of jubilation. IAU deliberations have not always been easy. For example, when the first-somewhat indistinct-photographs of the far side of the Moon were returned by the historically important Luna 3 mission, the Soviet discoverers wished to name a long, bright marking on their photographs “The Soviet Mountains.” Since there is no major terrestrial mountain range of this name, the suggestion was in conflict with the Hevelius convention. It was accepted, nevertheless, in homage to the remarkable feat of Luna 3. Unfortunately, subsequent data suggest that the Soviet Mountains are not mountains at all.
In a related instance, Soviet delegates proposed naming one of the two maria on the lunar far side (both very small compared with those on the near side) Mare Moscoviense (the Sea of Moscow). But Western astronomers objected that this again departed from tradition because Moscow was neither a condition of nature nor a state of mind. It was pointed out in response that the most recent namings of lunar maria-those on the limbs, which are difficult to make out with ground-based telescopes-have not quite followed this convention either: as Mare Marginis (the Marginal Sea), Mare Orientale (the Eastern Sea) and Mare Smythii (the Smyth Sea). Perfect consistency having already been breached, the issue was decided in favor of the Soviet proposal. At an IAU meeting in Berkeley, California, in 1961, it was officially ruled by Audouin Dollfus of France that Moscow is a state of mind.
The advent of space exploration has now multiplied manyfold the problems of solar system nomenclature. An interesting example of the emerging trend can be found in the naming of features on Mars. Bright and dark surface markings on the Red Planet have been viewed, recorded and mapped from Earth for several centuries. While the nature of the markings was unknown there was an irresistible temptation to name them nevertheless. Following several abortive attempts to name them after astronomers who had studied Mars, G. V. Schiaparelli in Italy and E. M. Antoniadi, a Greek astronomer who worked in France, established around the turn of the twentieth century the convention of naming Martian features after allusions to classical mythological personages and place names. Thus we have Thoth-Nepenthes, Memnonia, Hesperia, Mare Boreum (the Northern Sea) and Mare Acidalium (the Sour Sea), as well as Utopia, Elysium, Atlantis, Lemuria, Eos (Dawn) and Uchronia (which, I suppose, can be translated as Good Times). In 1890, scholarly people were much more comfortable with classical myth than they are today.
THE KALEIDOSCOPIC surface of Mars was first revealed by American spacecraft of the Mariner series, but chiefly by Mariner 9, which orbited Mars for a full year, beginning in November 1971, and radioed back to Earth more than 7,200 close-up photographs of its surface. A profusion of unexpected and exotic detail was uncovered, including towering volcanic mountains, craters of the lunar sort but much more heavily eroded, and enigmatic, sinuous valleys which were probably caused by running water at previous epochs in the history of the planet. These new features cried out for names, and the IAU dutifully appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Gerard de Vaucouleurs of the University of Texas to propose a new Martian nomenclature. Through the efforts of several of us on the Martian nomenclature committee, a serious attempt was made to deprovincialize the new names. It was impossible to prevent major craters being named after astronomers who had studied Mars, but the range of occupations and nationalities could be significantly broadened. Thus there are Martian craters larger than 60 miles across named after the Chinese astronomers Li Fan and Liu Hsin; after biologists such as Alfred Russel Wallace, Wolf Vishniac, S. N. Vinogradsky, L. Spallanzani, F. Redi, Louis Pasteur, H. J. Muller, T. H. Huxley, J. B. S. Haldane and Charles Darwin; after a handful of geologists such as Louis Agassiz, Alfred Wegener, Charles Lyell, James Hutton and E. Suess; and even after a few science-fiction writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. G. Wells, Stanley Weinbaum and John W. Campbell, Jr. There are also two large craters on Mars named Schiaparelli and Antoniadi.
But there are many more cultures on the planet Earth-even ones with identifiable astronomical traditions-than are represented by any such list of individual names. In an attempt to offset at least in part this implicit cultural bias, a suggestion of mine was accepted to call the sinuous valleys after the names of Mars in other, largely non-European languages. On this page is a table of the most prominent. By a curious coincidence Ma’adim (Hebrew) and Al Qahira (Arabic: the war god after whom Cairo is named) are cheek by jowl. The landing site for the first Viking spacecraft was in Chryse, near the confluence of the Ares, Tiu, Simud and Shalbatana valleys.
TABLE 1
THE FIRST MARTIAN CHANNELS TO BE NAMED
Name :Language
Al Qabira:Egyptian Arabic
Ares:Greek
Auqakuh:Quechua (Inca)
Huo Hsing:Chinese
Ma’adim:Hebrew
Mangala:Sanskrit
Nirgal:Babylonian
Kasei:Japanese
Shalbatana:Akkadian
Simud:Sumerian
Tiu:Old English
For the massive Martian volcanoes, one suggestion was to name them after major terrestrial volcanoes, such as Ngorongoro or Krakatoa, which would permit some appearance on Mars of cultures with no written astronomical tradition. But this was objected to on the ground that there would be confusion when comparing terrestrial and Martian volcanoes: Which Ngorongoro are we talking about? The same potential problem exists for terrestrial cities, but we seem able to compare Portland, Oregon, with Portland, Maine, without
becoming hopelessly confused. Another suggestion, made by a European savant, was to name each volcano “Mons” (mountain) followed by the name of a principal Roman deity in the appropriate Latin genitive case: thus, Mons Martes, Mons Jovis and Mons Veneris. I objected that at least the last of these had been pre-empted by quite a different field of human activity. The reply was: “Oh, I hadn’t heard.” The outcome was to name the Martian volcanoes after adjacent bright and dark markings in the classical nomenclature. We have Pavonis Mons, Elysium Mons and-satisfyingly, for the largest volcano in the solar system-Olympus Mons. Thus, while the volcano names are very much in the Western tradition, by and large the most recent Mars nomenclature represents a significant break with tradition: an important number of features have been named neither after evocations of classical times nor after European geographical features and nineteenth-century Western visual astronomers.
Some Martian and lunar craters are named after the same individuals. This is the Portland case again, and I think it will cause very little confusion in practice. It does have at least one salutary benefit: on Mars there is today a large crater named Galileo. It is about the same size as the one named Ptolemaeus. And there are no craters on Mars named Scheiner or Riccioli.
Another unexpected consequence of the Mariner 9 mission is that the first close-up photographs of the moons of another planet were obtained. Maps now exist which show about half the surface features on the two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos (the attendants of the war god, Mars). A subcommittee on Mars satellite nomenclature which I chaired assigned craters on Phobos to astronomers who had studied the moons. A prominent crater at Phobos’ south pole is named after Asaph Hall, the discoverer of both moons. Astronomical apocrypha has it that Hall was on the verge of giving up his search for the Martian moons when he was directed by his wife to return to the telescope. He promptly discovered them and named them “fear” (Phobos) and “terror” (Deimos). Accordingly, the largest crater on Phobos was given Mrs. Hall’s maiden name, Angelina Stickney. Had the impacting object that excavated crater Stickney been any larger, it probably would have shattered Phobos.
Deimos is reserved for writers and others who were in some way involved with speculations about the moons of Mars. The two most prominent features are named after Jonathan Swift and Voltaire, who, in their speculative romances, Gulliver’s Travels and Micromégas, respectively, prefigured before the actual discovery the existence of two moons around Mars. I wanted to name a third Deimonic crater after René Magritte, the Belgian surrealist whose paintings “Le Château des Pyrénées” and “Le Sens de Réalité” pictured large rocks, suspended in the sky, of an aspect astonishingly like the two Martian moons-except for the presence in the first painting of a castle, which, so far as we know, does not surmount Phobos. The suggestion was, however, voted down as frivolous.
THIS IS THE moment in history when the features on the planets will be named forever. A crater name represents a substantial memorial: the estimated lifetime of large lunar, Martian and Mercurian craters is measured in billions of years. Because of the enormous recent increase in the number of surface features that need to be named-and also because the names of almost all dead astronomers have already been given to one or another celestial object-a new approach is needed. At the IAU meeting in Sydney, Australia, in 1973, several committees were appointed to look into questions of planetary nomenclature. One clear problem is that if craters on other planets are now named after a category other than people, we will be left with only the names of astronomers and a few others on the Moon and planets. It would be charming to name craters on, say, Mercury, after birds or butterflies, or cities or ancient vehicles of exploration and discovery. But if we accept this course, we will leave the impression on globes and maps and textbooks that we esteem only astronomers and physicists; that we care nothing for poets, composers, painters, historians, archaeologists, playwrights, mathematicians, anthropologists, sculptors, physicians, psychologists, novelists, molecular biologists, engineers and linguists. The proposal that such individuals be commemorated with unassigned lunar craters would result, say, in Dostoevsky or Mozart or Hiroshige assigned craters a tenth of a mile across, while Pitiscus is 52 miles in diameter. I do not think this would speak well for the breadth of vision and intellectual ecumenicism of the name-givers.
After a protracted debate this point of view has prevailed-in significant part due to its vigorous support by Soviet astronomers. Accordingly, the Mercury nomenclature committee, under the chairmanship of David Morrison of the University of Hawaii, has decided to name Mercurian impact craters after composers, poets and authors. Thus, major craters are named Johann Sebastian Bach, Homer and Murasaki. It is difficult for a committee of largely Western astronomers to select a group of names representative of all of world culture, and Morrison’s committee requested help from appropriate musicians and experts in comparative literature. The most vexing problem is to find, for example, the names of those who composed Han dynasty music, cast Benin bronzes, carved Kwakiutl totem poles and compiled Melanesian folk epics. But even if such information comes in slowly, there will be time: the Mariner 10 photography of Mercury, which discovered the features to be named, covered only half the surface of the planet, and it will be many years before the craters in the other hemisphere will be photographed and named.
In addition, there are a few objects on Mercury that have been recommended for other sorts of names for special purposes. The proposed 20° meridian of longitude passes through a small crater which the Mariner 10 television experimenters have suggested calling Hun Kal, the Aztec word for “twenty,” the base of Aztec arithmetic. And they have suggested calling an enormous depression, in some senses comparable to a lunar mare, the Caloris basin: Mercury is very hot. Finally, all of these names apply only to the topographic features of Mercury; the bright and dark markings, glimpsed dimly by past generations of ground-based astronomers, have not yet been mapped reliably. When they are, there will probably be new suggestions for naming them. Antoniadi proposed names for such features on Mercury, some of which-such as Solitudo Hermae Trismegisti (the solitude of Hermes, the thricegreat)-have a fine ring and perhaps will ultimately be retained.
NO PHOTOGRAPHIC maps of the surface of Venus exist, because the planet is perpetually enshrouded by opaque clouds. Nevertheless, surface features are being mapped by ground-based radar. Already it is apparent that there are craters and mountains, and other topographical features of stranger aspect. The success of the Venera 9 and 10 spacecraft in obtaining photographs of the planet’s surface suggests that someday photographs may be returned from aircraft or balloons in the lower Venus atmosphere.
The first prominent features discovered on Venus, regions highly reflective to radar, were given unassuming names such as Alpha, Beta and Gamma. The present Venus nomenclature committee, under the chairmanship of Gordon Pettengill of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposes two categories of names for Venus surface features. One category would be pioneers in radio technology whose work led to the development of the radar techniques that permit mapping the surface of Venus: for example, Faraday, Maxwell, Heinrich Hertz, Benjamin Franklin and Marconi. The other category, suggested by the name of the planet itself, would be women. At first glance, the idea of a planet devoted to women may appear sexist. But I think the opposite is true. For historical reasons, women have been discouraged from pursuing the sorts of occupations now being memorialized on other planets. The number of women after whom craters have so far been named is very small: Sklodowska (Madame Curie’s maiden name); Stickney; the astronomer Maria Mitchell; the pioneer nuclear physicist Lisa Meitner; Lady Murasaki; and only a few others. While by the occupational rules for other planets women’s names will continue to appear occasionally on other planetary surfaces, the Venus proposal is the only one that permits adequate recognition to be made of the historical contribution of women. (I am glad, however, that this idea will not be applied consistently; I would not myself want to see Mercury
covered with businessmen and Mars with generals.)
In a fashion, women have traditionally been commemorated in the asteroid belt (see Chapter 15), that collection of rocky and metallic boulders which circle the Sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. With the exception of a category of asteroids named after heroes of the Trojan War, it used to be that all asteroids were named after women. First it was largely women of classical mythology, such as Ceres, Urania, Circe and Pandora. As available goddesses dwindled, the scope broadened to include Sappho, Dike, Virginia and Sylvia. Then, as the floodgates of discovery opened and the names of astronomers’ wives, mothers, sisters, mistresses and great-aunts were exhausted, they took to naming asteroids after real or hoped-for patrons and others, with a female ending appended, as, for example, Rockefelleria. By now more than two thousand asteroids have been discovered, and the situation has become moderately desperate. But non-Western traditions have hardly been tapped, and there are a multitude of Basque, Amharic, Ainu, Dobu and!Kung feminine names for future asteroids. In anticipation of an Egyptian-Israeli détente, Eleanor Helin of the California Institute of Technology proposed calling an asteroid she discovered Ra-Shalom. An additional problem-or opportunity, depending on how one views it-is that we may soon obtain close-up photographs of asteroids, with surface details that will cry out to be named.