About the marital Fidelity of the gods, father of Jupiter, one may judge how you want. It is noted that no one in the Olympus took it less carefully than he. For the astronomers, at least, the pronounced promiscuity of the Roman Obergotts is very beneficial and lucky for all the Fans of the sky customer.

called in a competition to name five new moons orbiting the planet Jupiter. After their discovery they had been provisionally provided with shortcuts, so one of the moons “S/2018 J1”. However, this is quite profane, and therefore can propose until the middle of April everyone something more Poetic. It is sufficient to an informal Tweet to @JupiterLunacy, provided with the tag #NameJupitersMoons. (Who does not want to explain his proposal to 280 characters, an explanatory video tweet.)

Two is remarkable. Firstly, that it is not so easy to find a suitable name. And, secondly, that the Public will be asked. Finally, the discoverer of the new moons of Jupiter, Scott Sheppard and his colleagues from the Carnegie Institution have the right to make a proposal for the designation. You want to be rich instead, but the best ideas of astronomy fans.

anyone Who wants to have a Chance, however, an almost Olympic variety of criteria in mind: The name should not be longer than 16 letters and any already-assigned names are very similar, you are allowed to sound in any language is offensive, not advertising, or even living persons dedicated to … and so on. And then the feature is still in there with the promiscuity: the godfather must be someone from the patchwork family of the gods, father.

First of all, it was quite strict. The big four, in the year 1610 Galileo Galilei discovered the moons of Jupiter – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto – carry the names of the characters that occur all in the ancient mythology as the lover of Jupiter. Some of the smaller moons were later named after children of the Greco-Roman chief olympiers. And since 2003, also the distant offspring of the godfather may be for new discoveries. “The reason was simply that we would otherwise have assumed to be the name, because Jupiter has many more moons than originally thought,” says Rita Schulz, the presidency of the International Astronomical Union, the decisive body for all celestial bodies names: the “working group for planetary nomenclature” (Yes, the’s).

This article dates back to the TIME no 15/2019. Here you can read the entire issue.

you will send Sheppard soon his favorites from the #NameJupitersMoons competition. Is already determined, the new name must end: All the companions, whose path is in the direction of rotation of the planet (“prograd”),- a; those that move in the opposite direction (“retrograde”), need a name with the last letter -e. Now the Twitter users to try on earth to trump with suggestions: his beloved Iodama, his daughter Melete? Or Ate, Jupiter’s daughter and the goddess of lies, it wouldn’t be a fitting Name for a counter-rotating satellites? Or Danaë, mother of Perseus, the this received, after the father of the gods in, had now turned Yes, gold rain? A High on Jupiter’s infidelity!

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