8/19/2023 0 Comments Sleipnir fossa norse![]() The approved Pluto surface feature names include the Burney crater that honours Venetia Burney (1918-2009), who as an 11-year-old schoolgirl suggested the name "Pluto" for Clyde Tombaugh's newly discovered planet. More names are expected to be proposed to the IAU, both for Pluto and for its moons. "We appreciate the contribution of the general public in the form of their their naming suggestions and the New Horizons team for proposing these names to us," said Schulz. These names highlight the importance of pushing to the frontiers of discovery," said Rita Schulz, chair of the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature. "We're very excited to approve names recognising people of significance to Pluto and the pursuit of exploration as well as the mythology of the underworld. Other names had been used informally by the New Horizons science team to describe the many regions, mountain ranges, plains, valleys and craters discovered during the first close-up look at the surfaces of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. Some of the names were suggested by members of the public during the 'Our Pluto' campaign, which was launched as a partnership between the IAU, the New Horizons project and the SETI Institute. Tenzing Montes and Hillary Montes are mountain ranges honouring Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986) and Sir Edmund Hillary (1919-2008), the Indian/Nepali Sherpa and New Zealand mountaineer who were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest and return safely. NASA's New Horizons team proposed the names to the IAU following the first reconnaissance of Pluto and its moons by the New Horizons spacecraft. ![]() ![]() This is the first set of official names of surface features on Pluto to be approved by the Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the internationally recognised authority for naming celestial bodies and their surface features. ![]()
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