The heavenly aspirations of having a star or other celestial body named after you usually involve the rigmarole of an earthbound bureaucracy. Too much red tape to achieve celestial immortality?
By: Vanessa Uy
Many of you have asked previously about what it will take to name a star or other celestial body after your loved one or favorite Hollywood celebrity, porn star, musician or band – imagine an Earth-crosser or Earth-crossing asteroid named after Veruca Salt. This particular blog attempts to answer those pressing queries. Spoiler alert: It will cost you ungodly amounts of money.
For quite a while now, an Illinois based company called the International Star Registry – or others like it - had been frequently mentioned in various TV series’ story lines about how someone bought the naming rights of a newly discovered heavenly body after their cherished loved one. Sometimes at a price that’s beyond rational comprehension, imagine purchasing the naming rights of a heavenly body for 3,000 US dollars or more as a Christmas, Valentine’s Day, or Anniversary present as intangible as a celestial body named after you or your special someone.
Sadly, the worldwide astronomical community does not recognize celestial bodies named by the International Star Registry because the company is not the one legally and / or officially tasked to name heavenly bodies. After doing some research about what it takes to have a star or other heavenly and or celestial body named after you and your loved one is a truth that’s really stranger than fiction.
The international body that is assigned the task of naming existing heavenly and or celestial bodies that already exists and those that are yet discovered is the International Astronomical Union or IAU. Over the years, the IAU has been divided into various sub-bodies, teams, committees, and task groups due to the sheer number of celestial bodies that already exists and the ones that are continuously being discovered.
The last time I checked, Dr. Brian G. Marsden director of the IAU ’s Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge is probably one of the busiest of IAU ‘s “top brass”. Because as the head of the Minor Planet Center, asteroids – or minor planets as they are more properly called – is perhaps the celestial body that’s often named after famous and not so famous Hollywood celebrities. Which many tenured astronomers with prestigious university affiliations in the astronomical community often complain because most of these “celebrities” – although there are a few exceptions - haven’t worked in astronomy as an amateur or otherwise or who had no interest in astronomy whatsoever.
But still you can still have a celestial body – preferably an asteroid since there are still many that’s being discovered. To be named after you or your loved one / favorite musician / band / porn star, etc. that the International Astronomical Union will recognize with no strings attached, though it might still cost you several thousands of American currency. You can do this through a “legal loophole” via “research contributions” to professional asteroid hunters – i.e. paying them.
For example, if you have a six-figure sum burning a hole in your pocket – preferably close to a million in American currency, you could contact a professional asteroid hunter like Edward Bowell at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Maybe you might have enough money as research contributions to allow him to bestow some of his yet unnamed newly discovered asteroids with the name of your choice. Like naming an asteroid after your favorite musician or “Rock Band”. Imagine people over 30 will now be forever grateful to you because you spend almost a million in American currency just to name asteroids after Mia Zapata, Lunachicks or Veruca Salt. Sorry to disappoint you guys, but naming asteroids after your favorite musicians, bands, or celebrities do cost ungodly amounts of money. Maybe Adam Carolla’s fans conducted a fundraiser to raise enough money to have his name immortalized in an asteroid. Check out Asteroid 4535 Adamcarolla, it's very faint considering the absolute magnitude that's a little over 12 or so.
Showing posts with label Asteroids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Asteroids. Show all posts
Monday, November 17, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Is the Asteroid Vesta a Planet?
Since the dethronement of Pluto as a planet by the International Astronomical Union due to the planet being just like the countless other Kuiper Belt fragments seems somewhat disheartening. Must we clamor for another replacement?
By: Vanessa Uy
Ever since the search of planets far beyond Saturn i.e. far beyond what our naked eye can see had started a technological race to build a bigger - and therefore better – astronomical telescope towards the end of the 18th Century. Though it enabled William Herschel to discover the planet Uranus, this technological race allowed the discovery of a yet unknown region of our Solar System that’s much closer to home. A region that lies the orbit between the planet Mars and the planet Jupiter - namely the Asteroid Belt.
On the first night of the 19th Century, Giuseppe Piazzari discovered the largest of the known asteroids. He christened it Ceres after the ancient Roman goddess of agriculture. Later measurements have shown that the asteroid Ceres has a diameter of 440 miles or 710 kilometers with a surface area of 700,000 square miles or 1,810,000 square kilometers. Other asteroids were discovered in quick succession like Pallas – named after on what the Roman’s referred to as Athena – with a diameter of 300 miles or 480 kilometers. Then came Vesta – named after the Roman goddess of hearth fire – with a diameter of 240 miles or 385 kilometers. And then Juno – named after the queen of heaven in Roman mythology – with a diameter of 120 miles or 195 kilometers. Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, and Juno were often referred to as the “Big Four” of the asteroids because they are the only ones with substantial size. This title not only made these asteroids to assume a roughly spherical shape due to the substantial gravity created by their sheer mass concentration, but also those other asteroid bodies are very small in comparison to form a meaningful numerical ratio.
Though only the third largest of the “Big Four” asteroids, Vesta is the only one of them that can be seen on the Earth’s surface via the naked eye. To wonder why ancient “stargazers” who came scores of centuries before – even Renaissance era astronomers - failed to notice and observe the asteroid Vesta is a 250-page doctoral dissertation subject-in-itself. But the not so cut-and-dried scientific data that defines this asteroid only deepens its own mystery.
A number of people who do astronomy for a living have been intrigued by the subsequent scientific data that pertains to the somewhat quirky “geologic” history of the asteroid Vesta. Compared to other asteroids, the way Vesta evolved i.e. the history of how volcanic basalt migrated to Vesta’s surface and cooled is similar to how our planet Earth evolved through the eons. Ben Zellner, an astronomer at Georgia Southern University, is a proponent of the view that the asteroid Vesta should be considered as a planet in light of its geologic history. Zellner says that: “Early on, it (the asteroid Vesta) went through the same kind of history that the Earth and other rocky planets went through.” Zellner and his colleagues even utilized data from the Hubble Space Telescope back in March of 1995 to create a detailed and updated map of the surface of Vesta. Their Hubble data showed a type of basalt that cools below the surface being exposed by recent – geologically speaking – giant meteorite impacts. One such impact, in fact, is believed to have flung pieces of Vesta flying toward Earth. The different types of basalt that they have observed, says Zellner, only serve to confirm their suspicions that Vesta – though now frozen solid – must once have had a structure similar to the planet Earth, replete with a crust, mantle, and a molten liquid core.
Even if Vesta won’t be declared as a new planet, it doesn’t stand to loose brownie points - as one of the most interesting pieces of real estate in our Solar System. Asteroids are perfect spots for setting up laboratories to explore substances that date back to the formation of our Solar System. It is also a very good place to set up space based astronomical observatories, just think how our planet Earth will look when viewed by a 30 power telescope on Vesta’s surface. It also has a potential use as a future mining colony given that we are running out of profitable ores in which to mine our metals, or to provide as springboards for excursions deeper into the remote corners of the Solar System. The immediate future of mankind has always been part and parcel on our willingness to explore and develop the richest found in these asteroids.
By: Vanessa Uy
Ever since the search of planets far beyond Saturn i.e. far beyond what our naked eye can see had started a technological race to build a bigger - and therefore better – astronomical telescope towards the end of the 18th Century. Though it enabled William Herschel to discover the planet Uranus, this technological race allowed the discovery of a yet unknown region of our Solar System that’s much closer to home. A region that lies the orbit between the planet Mars and the planet Jupiter - namely the Asteroid Belt.
On the first night of the 19th Century, Giuseppe Piazzari discovered the largest of the known asteroids. He christened it Ceres after the ancient Roman goddess of agriculture. Later measurements have shown that the asteroid Ceres has a diameter of 440 miles or 710 kilometers with a surface area of 700,000 square miles or 1,810,000 square kilometers. Other asteroids were discovered in quick succession like Pallas – named after on what the Roman’s referred to as Athena – with a diameter of 300 miles or 480 kilometers. Then came Vesta – named after the Roman goddess of hearth fire – with a diameter of 240 miles or 385 kilometers. And then Juno – named after the queen of heaven in Roman mythology – with a diameter of 120 miles or 195 kilometers. Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, and Juno were often referred to as the “Big Four” of the asteroids because they are the only ones with substantial size. This title not only made these asteroids to assume a roughly spherical shape due to the substantial gravity created by their sheer mass concentration, but also those other asteroid bodies are very small in comparison to form a meaningful numerical ratio.
Though only the third largest of the “Big Four” asteroids, Vesta is the only one of them that can be seen on the Earth’s surface via the naked eye. To wonder why ancient “stargazers” who came scores of centuries before – even Renaissance era astronomers - failed to notice and observe the asteroid Vesta is a 250-page doctoral dissertation subject-in-itself. But the not so cut-and-dried scientific data that defines this asteroid only deepens its own mystery.
A number of people who do astronomy for a living have been intrigued by the subsequent scientific data that pertains to the somewhat quirky “geologic” history of the asteroid Vesta. Compared to other asteroids, the way Vesta evolved i.e. the history of how volcanic basalt migrated to Vesta’s surface and cooled is similar to how our planet Earth evolved through the eons. Ben Zellner, an astronomer at Georgia Southern University, is a proponent of the view that the asteroid Vesta should be considered as a planet in light of its geologic history. Zellner says that: “Early on, it (the asteroid Vesta) went through the same kind of history that the Earth and other rocky planets went through.” Zellner and his colleagues even utilized data from the Hubble Space Telescope back in March of 1995 to create a detailed and updated map of the surface of Vesta. Their Hubble data showed a type of basalt that cools below the surface being exposed by recent – geologically speaking – giant meteorite impacts. One such impact, in fact, is believed to have flung pieces of Vesta flying toward Earth. The different types of basalt that they have observed, says Zellner, only serve to confirm their suspicions that Vesta – though now frozen solid – must once have had a structure similar to the planet Earth, replete with a crust, mantle, and a molten liquid core.
Even if Vesta won’t be declared as a new planet, it doesn’t stand to loose brownie points - as one of the most interesting pieces of real estate in our Solar System. Asteroids are perfect spots for setting up laboratories to explore substances that date back to the formation of our Solar System. It is also a very good place to set up space based astronomical observatories, just think how our planet Earth will look when viewed by a 30 power telescope on Vesta’s surface. It also has a potential use as a future mining colony given that we are running out of profitable ores in which to mine our metals, or to provide as springboards for excursions deeper into the remote corners of the Solar System. The immediate future of mankind has always been part and parcel on our willingness to explore and develop the richest found in these asteroids.
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