Hole in the Sky

The post from earlier today about the names of the planets got me thinking: Why is Uranus the only planet in our solar system to get its name from Greek mythology? All of rest take their names from Roman mythology. Well, except for Earth. (You know, Planet Dirt, as its name could be interpreted, though the Romans did have an “mother earth” goddess, Terra, and Italian person would refer to our planet as Terra.) Had astronomers kept the pattern and used the name of Uranus’s Roman equivalent, the seventh planet would be called Caelus, but they instead used Uranus, the Latinized version of the name of the Greek sky god. Weird, right?

I would like to imagine the name resulted from some astronomer foreseeing how fun later generations would have with anus jokes. However, anuses apparently didn’t factor in, at least any more than they do into every other decision. This celestial body — initially called Georgium Sidus, “George’s star,” in honor of King George III — became Uranus when scientists generally agreed with the logic of astronomer Johann Elert Bode, who pointed out that because Jupiter’s father was Saturn, then this new planet should in turn be named for Saturn’s father. Grandpa, father, son — in order. Makes sense, I guess. But because some of the involved parties were English-speakers, and I presume they had anuses, I’d still like to think that at least some of them were in on the joke. They had to be, right?

A small post-script: My fifth-grade teacher insisted that the name of this planet was pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable. Insisted. I cannot forgive her.

An additional post-script, added after the fact: The awkwardness of the name Uranus is totally compounded by the fact that the adjective Uranian was in the late nineteenth century used to mean “homosexual.” Oh, how the jokes write themselves.

A Fuller Moon (For a Limited Time Only!)

This week, an eyes-on-the-sky, neck-craned-up word.

perigee (PAIR-uh-jee) — 1. the point nearest the earth’s center in the orbit of a moon or satellite. 2. the point in any orbit nearest to the body being orbited.

Though the term would otherwise be unknown to those who don’t think much about the night sky, it’s in the news this week, for tonight our moon reaches its perigee. What’s more, it’s also a full moon, meaning that it will be particularly bright — 30 percent more so than when it reaches its apogee, or the point in its orbit farthest from Earth. (It’s odd, but I knew the word apogee, though I can’t remember ever hearing perigee until this week. Probably why I was fired from my job as a moon doctor.) This “supermoon,” according to the Washington Post, will also be the “biggest” since 1993.

a brighter moon, though you have little basis for comparison

Strictly speaking, the implications of this celestial IMAX show are limited to the tides, though I’m sure plenty of people out there would like to blame the closeness of the moon for the various calamities befalling our planet. I’ll leave that debate to religious nuts and scientists to duke out. I’m more concerned today with the language of celestial movements.

Perigee, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, comes from French, which got it from the Medieval Latin perigeum, which in turn got it from the Greek perigeion. And that word breaks down into peri- — meaning “around,” like in perimeter, or “near,” as in perinatal — and gē, meaning “earth,” like in geology and related to Gaia.

For those who closely study these matters (and who apparently want to confuse and exclude novices trying to listen eavesdrop on them for god-knows-why), there’s a whole cryptic vocabulary for the closest-to and farthest-from orbit points, or the apsides (singular: apsis). So, like, perigee and apogee refer to specifically to Earth, while the sun gets perihelion and aphelion (both from the Greek helios, “sun”) to describe the objects orbiting around it. And the movements of stars within a galaxy get perigalacticon (closest to the center) and apogalacticon (farthest from the center), both of which are awesome. Really. Say them outloud. Movement of bodies around stars (as opposed to our sun) get periastron and apostron. And black holes get three options: perimelasma, peribothra and perinigricon for the points unfortunate enough to be closest to this gaping nothings, and apomelasma, apobothra, and aponigricon for the presumably safer points farthest away. (Melasma, a skin condition, simply means “dark spot.” I’m not sure where bothra or nigricon come from, though I’d guess the latter has something to do with the color black.)

For the other planets and Earth’s moon, the vocabulary devolves into the kind of multisyllabic unpronounceables common only to sci-fi novels and medication brand names. Here they are, as short as I can make them:

• Mercury gets perihermion and apohermion, after Mercury’s Greek counterpart, Hermes.
• Venus gets three: pericytherion, pericytherean and perikrition. (The “apo” group looks just like you’d expect. In fact, I’ll just leave those out from here on, since they’re all the same roots.) The first two come from the Greek island Cythera, which sits near where Venus was supposedly born from foam in the sea. Why choose this? According to Wikipedia, because the proper adjective form of Venus, venerean, sounded too much like venereal, and a similar situation prevented them from using the goddess’s Greek name and calling all things from the planet Venus aphrodisial. Thus, cytherean got a chance at the big time, and apparently was used in science fiction writing to describe Venus-born oddities in the first half of the twentieth century. Perikrition apparently comes from Kritias, which which Wikipedia describes as “an older name for Aphrodite,” which, considering how old Aphrodite must be, sounds funny to me.
• For our moons, it’s once again wonderfully complicated. Periselene (from the moon titaness Selene), pericynthion (from Cynthia, another name for Artemis), and perilune (from Luna, the Roman version of Selene) could be used interchangeably. And, really, who’s counting? Why don’t you just go ahead and do that? For certain astro-nigglers, however, pereiselene refers to artificial bodies, perilune to objects launched from Earth’s moon, and pericynthion for objects launched “elsewhere,” whatever that means. NASA apparently chose pericynthion to describe the Apollo project.
• For Mars, it’s periareion and apoareion, from the Greek god Ares.
• For Jupiter, it’s perizene and perijove, though Wikipedia perplexingly notes that the latter is “occasionally used” and the former is “never used.” I guess people just don’t like talking about Jupiter?
• For Saturn, it’s perikrone and perisaturnium, though the former (from the titan Kronos, the king of time) is preferred.
• For Uranus, it’s periuranion, because this planet was actually given the name of the Greek version of the god and not that of Caelus, his Roman equivalent.
• For Neptune, it’s periposeidion, after Poseidon.
• And for that poor nothing Pluto, it’s perihadion, after Hades.

I can’t explain exactly why I find this all so fascinating, but I suppose it’s probably combination of me being a mythology nerd and me being impressed that planetary scientists actually thought this naming system through, deciding that since the peri- and apo- prefixes were Greek, they would combine more smoothly with Greek gods’ names instead of the Roman ones. Or perhaps these guys, being scientists, decided to keep the formulas pure, as they would in any other setting. In any case, the resulting words, clumsily Greek though they may sound and look, create this beautiful bond between old world religion and the most fascinating studies about our giant galaxy that I find rather touching.

And, just so I conclude on a note that doesn’t sound so schmaltzy, I’ll point out that Autocorrect, you naughty rascal you, kept repeatedly trying to turn perigeum into perineum.

Planets and such, previously:

• The Big Book of How, Why and WHAAAAAA?!
• Mnemonic devices for remembering the order of the planets (minus Pluto)
• The story behind that aborted new planet that was to be called Ceres or Xena
• What a Tacky Sunset, What a Vulgar Moon

Previous strange and wonderful words:

• acné excoriée des jeunes filles, adulterine, ageusia, ambeer, anosmia
• barrack, bissextile, bloofer, breastsummer
• catholicon, cecaelia, cherpumple, couvade, cranberry morpheme, crwth, culaccino, cummingtonite
• deasil, decussate, deuteragonist, dingbat, dingle
• eidolon, epeolatry, epopt, espalier, etui, exoterica
• fabiform, Feghoot, fissilingual, Föhnkrankheit, folderol, froward
• gallinipper, grandgore, grue, guilloche, gyaru
• hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, hogo, honorificabilitudinitatibus
• ignivomous, iracund, isabelline, itaiitai
• jabroni, jamais vu, jehu, jumentous
• kaffir, kakopygian, kayfabe, knipperdollin
• leman, lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
• malacia, malison, milt, mongo, morepork
• narrenfreiheit, nef, nihilartikel, nobiliary particle, nosism
• ochanee, ogonek, ombré, ooglification, orchidectomy, ordured, orf
• pace, pareidolia, pavonated, perendiate, petrichor, pettifogger, pismire, pogonip, pong, pruniferous, puggle, pulveratricious, purse
• quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh, quidnunc
• ronion, roynish, rubirosa, rumpsprung
• salmagundi, scrutator, seneschal, shebang, sinople, stan, stevedore, suovetaurilia
• tappen, teratogenesis, tergiversate, tetromino, thagomizer, thon, tiffin, tittery-whoppet, tmesis, toby, tutoyer, tyro
• ucalegon, ultramontane, umquhile
• veneficial, verdigris, vespertilionine, vinegeroon
• weeaboo, widdiful, williwaw, witzelsucht, wooper looper
• xenodocheionology, xyster
• yazoo, ypsiliform, yoink
• zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic, zinnober, zugzwang

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The Big Book of How, Why and WHAAAAAA?!

Just to prove that I’m not going to post only art from childhood storybooks and then try to imply that it is sexual in some way, here is the cover of one of those amazingly dated educational books that I believe I may have inherited from my mom.

I always loved the art, even if it might have made me think that various celestial bodies were a lot closer together than they actually are.

Mnemonic Devices for Remembering the Order of Planets (Minus Pluto)

For some time now, eccentric mothers throughout the English-speaking world have ceased to order their children ninety pizzas. Pluto being downgraded to a mere dwarf planet has rendered this handy-dandy mnemonic device irrelevant, and while “My very excellent mother just served us nachos” works okay, I guess, I think we can do better.

Some suggestions:

• Many volatile educators maim juveniles suddenly, using needles.
• Mice very enthusiastically munch Jerry Seinfeld’s uncle, Norman.
• Mr. Valdez excitedly mimicked jiggly strippers until noon.
• “My valuable excrement makes jewelry shine,” uttered Nancy.
• My vulgar exclamations might just soften underwear nubs.

I am betting that no one who reads this blog can come up their own. Now prove me wrong.

Whatever Happened to Space Xena?

Remember back in 2005 when scientists found those two new celestial bodies? And they called one Ceres? And they called the other one Xena? And for a little while people were saying we might get eleven planets in our solar system?

But then, horrifically, they decided instead that not only were Ceres and Xena not planets, but Pluto wasn't anymore either?

Remember that?

ol' what's-her-name

Well, I do. And I thought of that recently and decided to find out exactly what became of the "Xena" nickname, since I couldn't remember. Fittingly, for something that had a shot — however small — at being named a planet but was ultimately demoted down to "dwarf planet," Xena eventually took the name "Eris," after goddess of spite and discord. It's no "Xena," but it at least beats "2003 UB₃₁₃," the name it was initially known by International Astronomical Union while its members sorted out the various taxonomical rules that govern the naming of space rocks. Reading up on the subject on the Wikipedia, I found that the astro-researchers who initially found Eris nicknamed the body after the titular character from Xena: Warrior Princess for the following reasons:

We chose it since it started with an X ("Planet X”). It sounds mythological (OK, so it’s TV mythology, but Pluto is named after a cartoon, right?). And (this part is actually true) we’ve been working to get more female deities out there (i.e. Sedna). Also at the time the TV show was still on TV, which shows you how long we’ve been searching!

spite, as always, wins out

Interesting. (Sedna, by the way, is another would-be planet that may one day qualify for dwarf planet status, depending on how the International Astronomical Union chooses to define the term. She takes her name from an Inuit goddess.) Before the official designation, Persephone was also tossed around as a possible official name for the tenth planet, in reference to its proximity to Pluto's, but Eris was ultimately selected, as the Wikipedia puts it, in reference to "the discord in the astronomical community caused by the debate over the object's (and Pluto's) nature."

"Persephone" actually topped the list of reader submissions printed by New Scientist back in the day. That list also included "Xena," as well as "Galileo," "Rupert" (after A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), "Titan," "Nibiru" (a Babylonian goddess), "Cerberus," "Loki," "Bob," some variation on the number ten. (The best: "Bolero," which was so adeptly used in Bo Derek's Ten.)

lucy, in the sky, without laws

Easily the best thing I learned in all this research into this, however, has to be the epilogue that gives poor Xena another shot at astronomical celebrity. Shortly after Eris herself was discovered, so too was a moon that orbited her. While the satellite had been initially nicknamed "Gabrielle," after Xena's sidekick on the show, it eventually earned the name "Dysnomia." In mythology, Dysnomia is Eris's daughter and the Greek representation of lawlessness.

That is, like Lucy Lawless, the actress who played Xena.

That pseudo-Greek heroine made in into the sky after all.

EDIT: And then another time I bitched about celestial names.

What a Tacky Sunset, What a Vulgar Moon

Going back through the mnemonic device I was taught to remember the names of the planets in our solar system — yes, the one about the very eccentric mother — I was suddenly struck with the comparative crappiness of the name of the planet I'm writing this on. Earth — as in, a synonym for "dirt." Literally, our planet shares its name with some of the smallest particles that make up its outer layers. Our nearest neighbors, as pop culture self-help books remind us, share names with this great figures from Roman mythology — Mars, the uber-manly symbol of wrathful warfare, and Venus, the embodiment of all things sexy to the point that her name gives us the itchy, scratchy term "venereal." But here we sit in the middle, with no clear mythological figure to look up to. Even the two celestial bodies most important to Earth — the moon and the sun — get the shaft, as far as names go. Rather than calling them by their Roman names, we stick them with the generic terms for such things. Just a plain old sun, and a boring moon. We could have easily called the sun "Sol," I suppose, and the moon "Luna." Or something like that. But no. Other planet's moons — bodies which, I understand, have fairly little impact upon the daily lives of Earthlings — get fantastic names, like Europa and Ganymede and the like. We, however, insist upon referring the ones important to us as if they were the most humdrum, run-of-the-mill sun and moon we could possibly come across.

What I propose: If we're to rename the Sun, Moon and Earth, I vote that we either call them by their Roman names so as to fall in line with the rest of the solar system and call the three Sol, Luna and Terra, respectively. But if we really go through with this, I say we shoot the moon, so to speak. My suggestions for the new names for the Sun, Moon and Earth are — again, respectively — Superman, Moonie the Best Moon Ever, and the Wonderful Planet of Funk.