Dwarf Planet Haumea

Haamea is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt (a band of space objects out beyond the orbit of Neptune) that was discovered in late 2004 by CalTech astronomer Mike Brown and his team and in 2005 by Jose Luis Ortiz Moreno and his team in Spain. (There is some controversy there, but it outside the scope of this post.) Objects in the Kuiper belt are named after creation deities, so Mike Brown’s team’s name, Huamea, was accepted over the Spanish team’s name for the Dwarf Planet. They named the object Huamea after the Hawaiian goddess, in honor of the place where they had first observed it.

Artist rendition of Haumea and its two moons (A. Field via StScI)

As with many myths, Haumea is associated with many names and stories. Some stories equate her with Papa (also Papahānaumoku), giving Papa as her human form to the spirit form of Haumea. Papa, with her husband Wakea, is often said to be the origin of the Hawaiian people, or sometimes the entire human race.

As Huamea, she is said to have given birth to a number of children, not in the normal way, but from various parts of her body. Pele, the goddess of volcanoes, sprang from her thighs while other children sprang from her mouth or her forehead. She is considered the goddess of Childbirth and Fertility.

This giving of herself to make her children is also the reason her name was picked for the Dwarf Planet. The DP Huamea was part of a collision long ago, which resulted in Huamea’s moons, Ki’iaka and Namaka, named for two of her daughters, and the dwarf planet’s oblong, rather than round, shape.

The goddess Huamea was also said to have been able to change her shape and age with the assistance of a variety of magical objects, some of which she obtained in return for assisting people with births. Huamea is often associated with the Kalihi Valley of Ohau, where she is said to have lived with her husband Wakea, once saving him from death by hiding them both in a breadfruit tree. The Kalihi Valley is now part of the suburbs of Honolulu and these local stories are only remember by a few people.

Share Spotlight: How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had it Coming

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had it Coming

This week's Share Spotlight is a book by Mike Brown, the astronomer who made the discovery that resulted in the new category of Dwarf Planet and Pluto's expulsion from Planethood. I wrote about the book in one of my Book Roundups a while back, but since it really was the inspiration for the new Astronomical Mythology series I'm working on, I figured it deserved its own Share Spotlight.

The book is funny and moving. I never would have believed that a scientist could write so well. This is how science writing should be done. Just read the book and you will understand. Once you do, tell me what you think!

Mike Brown also has a sort of sporadic blog called Mike Brown's Planets that is well worth a look.

Astronomical Mythology

This week I’m starting on a new series on the Mythology surrounding the figures the different things in our Solar System (and maybe out of it) are named for. We’ll start off with how they get their names.

Everyone knows the names of the 8 (formerly 9) planets in our Solar System. Most of us even know where their names come from, Greek and Roman mythology. But what about all the other bodies in the solar system?

Turns out there are pretty specific rules that govern what a discoverer can call something, based on what sort of thing it is. For example, the moons of Uranus must all be named after Shakespeare characters while the moons of Jupiter must be named after Zeus/Jupiter’s lovers or children.

The four Gallilean moons of Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. (Wikimedia)

Some bodies, such as the first four of Jupiter’s moons back in the 1600s, were named by the people who discovered them. When the formal naming process was created, these names were confirmed and others were made to follow in their mold. Others held a scientific notation, such as Jupiter VI, until the official rules were created.

But who decides what these rules are?

In the 1970s, the International Astronomical Union put together a taskforce to deal with what things should be called and now decides on the “unambiguous astronomical nomenclature” (read How Space Things Are Named So No One Confuses Them with Something Else) that results in the names used for various types of astronomical objects. The IAU is an organization of thousands of astronomers and other cosmologists from around the world that get together every year to decide on important issues in astronomy. They’re the ones who decided that Pluto was a Dwarf Planet back in 2006.

Astronomers, professional or amateurs, must submit their discovery and proposed name to the IAU for scrutiny before it becomes official. They make sure that the name is not already taken and that it accords with the rules for whatever has been discovered.

Curious what all of the rules are? Check out the International Astronomical Union’s website.