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+--- Thread: Help Name A Distant Astronomical Object (/showthread.php?tid=12628)
Help Name A Distant Astronomical Object - Bob Schroeck - 11-07-2017
On New Year's Day, NASA's "New Horizons" probe is going to encounter an oddly-shaped ice-covered object at the very edge of the solar system, making it the most distant object ever explored by a spacecraft. The problem is... it doesn't have a nice, easy-to-say name. Its only name right now is the catalogue number "(486958) 2014 MU69", which the guy in charge of the New Horizons project calls a "license plate designator". So NASA has decided to crowdsource a name for it that will roll trippingly off the newsfeed.
You can nominate a name here or vote for an existing suggestion here. To avoid another "Boaty McBoatface", they're not going to be blindly taking the one with most votes, but will review some small number of the top vote-getters and pick from them.
If you want to read more about this, there's this Washington Post article, if you haven't used up your free views from them yet this month.
RE: Help Name A Distant Astronomical Object - robkelk - 11-07-2017
Alas, "Janus" is already in use for one of Saturn's moons. It would have been perfect - two rocks of roughly the same size, at the doorway to the Solar System...
RE: Help Name A Distant Astronomical Object - Dartz - 11-07-2017
'Athlone'
A lifeless hole in the arsehole of nowhere.
RE: Help Name A Distant Astronomical Object - DHBirr - 11-07-2017
Outthere. Less whimsically, Niflheim, which Wikipedia confirms is a "realm of primordial ice and cold." Or Utgard, which can be translated as "Outer Place."