Title: Naming the Man in the Moon.   
Subject(s): MOON; NAMES; LUNAR craters
Source: Astronomy, Feb99, Vol. 27 Issue 2, p82, 4p, 3c, 7bw
Author(s): Hodge, Paul
Abstract: Probes into the naming of the moon's features. Information
on some women whose names were used for lunar craters; Changes in the
names; Some political figures commemorated in lunar names.
AN: 1448806
ISSN: 0091-6358
Note: Tucson-Pima Public Library subscribes to this magazine.
Database: MasterFILE Elite

NAMING THE MAN IN THE MOON

Want a lunar crater named after you? It certainly helps if you are an
ancient Greek, or a famous, dead, male astronomer.

The "man in the moon" of my childhood, that splotchy pattern of
dark-lava flows and chalky highlands, actually reminds me of a woman:
a glowing, cameo silhouette of Whistler's mother. And why not? In
Roman times the deity personified by the moon was feminine -- Luna --
and many of my female friends instinctively identify with her 29.5-day
revolution cycle.

However, Lunar cartography reflects those who named the orbiting orb's
features and those who dominated the early eras of science. Indeed,
when it comes to the modern moon, it helps if you were an ancient
Greek or a famous, dead, male astronomer.

Astronomy's claim on the moon, and the need to name her Landmarks, has
resulted in a unique history of science from an astronomical
perspective. Those who mistakenly favored heliocentrism and a flat
Earth are memorialized alongside Newton, Darwin, and Einstein. Not
unexpectedly, the father of astronomy dominates Lunar geography.
Copernicus, the 58-mile (93-km) crater of the western plains, is one
of the grandest features, with rays that splay out hundreds of miles
in all directions. Nicolas Copernicus was the Polish astronomer who
showed how much easier it would be for Earth to go around the sun than
the reverse. His theory changed everything. On the other hand, Kepler
is a smaller 19-mile (30-km) crater west of Copernicus, named for the
astronomer who in the early 17th century discovered the mathematical
nature of the planets' motions. His discovery helped Isaac Newton
discover the Law of gravity, which explains the motion of planets in
the solar system.

The naming of the moon's features began centuries ago. Craters were
named and renamed. Even the International Astronomical Union (IAU),
the group that now regulates the naming of lunar craters, has
occasionally sidestepped its posthumous requirement. Take, for
example, Armstrong, the crater named after Neil Armstrong, the
Apollo-II astronaut. The crater is one small step for bending the
rules, and one giant Leap for mankind.

About 20 Lunar craters are named after women. The 18th-century German
astronomer Caroline Herschel is there. She discovered nebulae, clouds
of interstellar gas and dust, as well as eight comets. She also helped
her brother, William Herschel, discover the planet Uranus. A crater is
named after Annie Jump Cannon, a Harvard astronomer and among the
first to systematically classify stars. Another is named after Agnes
Clerke, an astronomy writer who once wrote of a Leonid meteor shower:
"On the night of November 12-13, 1833, a tempest of falling stars
broke over the Earth." There also are craters named after less
well-known women who deserve to be better known: Antonia C. de P. P.
Maury, a prolific Harvard spectroscopist; Mary Blagg, a lunar
scientist who was instrumental in establishing the List of official
names for Lunar features; and Louise Jenkins, a Yale astronomer and
editor of the Yale Bright Star Catalog. The far side of the moon has
crater Leavitt, named for Henrietta Swan Leavitt, a Harvard astronomer
who studied variable stars called Cepheids. With her findings, Edwin
Hubble and others discovered that the universe is expanding.

Mary Somerville, the Scottish physicist, is there, so is two-time
Nobel Prize-winning chemist Marie Curie, who is recognized on the
Lunar far side by the crater Sklodowska, her maiden name. The
18th-century French mathematician Madame Lepaute (Nicole-Reine Etable
de la Briere Hortense Lepaute) has a small crater named for her in the
southern lunar highlands.

This lunar memorial garden rotates at exactly the same rate as it
revolves around Earth. It's called a synchronous rotation -- the moon
continually presents the same face to us. This hemisphere is about the
same area as the continental United States. And like a real cemetery,
the lunar real estate available for names has dwindled. Albert
Einstein, the originator of relativity theory, and Hubble, arguably
this century's greatest astronomer, are commemorated by two craters so
ill-placed on the margin of the lunar face that they are virtually
impossible to see from Earth.

A quirk of lunar motion, called libration, brings Einstein into our
line of sight on occasion, but it is very difficult to see with an
ordinary telescope. This libration, or "swinging," effect works like
this: The moon's rotation on its axis is constant, but its orbital
velocity around Earth is changing constantly; slowing at the moon's
farthest point (apogee), and speeding up at its closest point
(perigee). As the steadily rotating moon passes by at its fastest
speed it reveals a small slice of its dark side just beyond its
western Limb. At its slowest speed we are exposed to a small slice of
its dark side just beyond its eastern limb. Instead of presenting 50
percent of her surface to us, the moon actually reveals about 58
percent. If you want to stretch the libration point further, another
one percent of the moon would be visible if we could take advantage of
Earth's size and watch the moon simultaneously from its arctic and
Antarctic regions, and from opposite points along its equator.

Galileo discovered that the moon is cratered, but he let others map
it. The early years were chaotic: The names of craters changed with
each successive mapmaker. One mapper, M. van Langren, a Belgian
mathematician, came up with an idea that persisted: In 1645, he named
the craters on his Lunar map after astronomers. Years Later he himself
was honored. The 17th-century Polish astronomer Johan Hevelke began
the custom of naming Lunar mountains after terrestrial ranges; hence
we now have the lunar Alps, the Apennines, the Carpathians, and the
Caucasus.

Craters are the most abundant lunar features. They have always borne
human names. The 17th-century Italian philosopher Giovanni Riccioli
named hundreds of craters. Those in the north were named for the most
ancient honorees and those in the south went to the more recent. Thus,
Riccioli's Lunar map is a historical timeline, read north to south.
The 62-mile (100-km) crater Plato was named for the fourth-century
B.C. Greek philosopher who championed a system of reality that went
beyond human senses. The equally prominent Tycho, in the south, was
named for Tycho Brahe. This 16th-century Danish astronomer's precise
measurements of planetary positions enabled Johannes Kepler to
discover the Laws of planetary motion.

Riccioli's historical system was abandoned in the following centuries,
but many of his conventions for naming craters continued. The German
Lunar mapmakers Johann Schroter, Wilhelm Beer, and Johann Heinrich
Madler were responsible for hundreds of the names we now use for Lunar
craters. The three eventually were memorialized as well.

The far, unseen side of the moon was photographed by the Apollo
spacecraft, the Lunar Orbiters, and most recently the Clementine
Mission. Thousands of new craters were discovered, but since there
were only a few hundred famous dead astronomers whose names had not
yet been used, the TAU had too few names.

Even early lunar cartographers resorted to names from other scientific
disciplines, including chemistry and biology, physics and philosophy.
They also delved into classical Greek and Roman history for more
names.

Mathematicians have done well on the moon, probably because astronomy
leans so heavily on their work. For instance George Boole, a
19th-century Englishman whose Boolean algebra is important to modern
computer scientists, has a crater named after him. However, Boole is
virtually invisible from Earth, lying at the far northwest corner of
the moon. Not far from Boole, larger and a little easier to find, is
another crater. It is Babbage, named for the 19th-century English
mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage. He is the father of the
modern computer.

In addition to the physicists Somerville and Curie, there are craters
named after Newton, Michael Faraday, and James Watt. The crater named
for Charles Darwin, the 19th-century English biologist and author of
The Origin of Species, sits near the crater named after Jean-Baptiste
Lamarck, the French zoologist whose major accomplishment was the
division of animal Life into the vertebrate and invertebrate
categories.

At the bottom of Mare Fecunditatis Lies Colombo, named for Christopher
Columbus, and Cook, named for Captain James Cook. In the same Lunar
sea but closer to the equator is Hagelhaens, named for Ferdinand
Magellan, the seafaring circumnavigator, and Lindbergh, named for
Charles Lindbergh, the American aviator who pioneered transatlantic
flight.

Earth's polar explorers are appropriately remembered at the Lunar
poles: Amundsen and Scott are 62-mile (100-km) craters at the Lunar
south pole. Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer, won a dramatic race
in late 1911 to be the first person to reach the south pole. The
craters Nansen and Byrd Lie near the Lunar north pole. Fridtjof Nansen
was another Norwegian explorer, whose ship, the Fram, penetrated
farther north than any predecessor. It was locked in the polar ice in
1895, only a few degrees from the north pole. Richard Byrd was an
American aviator who is said to have been the first to fly over the
north pole.

In 1970 the TAU broke its rules and assigned the names of twelve
astronauts and cosmonauts to Lunar craters. The best known are
Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, the three Apollo-II astronauts, the
first to walk on the moon.

A few well-known political figures are commemorated because of their
scientific, not their political, achievements. Caesar is a Large,
ancient crater near the center of the moon, named for Julius Caesar,
who improved the calendar. A younger crater in the northern highlands
is named Franklin, after Benjamin Franklin, the American statesman
whose famous kite experiment helped prove the electrical nature of
Lightning. Sir Thomas Brisbane, a Scottish politician, soldier, and
amateur astronomer, has a crater named in his honor -- Brisbane. It
stands guard near the "shore" of Hare Australe.

Although many named craters are difficult, if not impossible, to see
with a modest telescope from the ground, hundreds, of them can be
found. It is an entertaining and enlightening sport to find the
craters that have some special significance. Sharp-eyed observers will
have a challenge to find some of these craters, but the experience of
exploring the friendly Lunar face can be a pleasure, especially when
it has names you know that are tied to memories you treasure.

PHOTO (COLOR): This C. F. Eckersberg painting shows the Danish King
...

This C. F. Eckersberg painting shows the Danish King Christian IV
visiting Tycho Brahe in 1592. Lunar crater Tycho is named after the
16th-century astronomer.

PHOTO (COLOR): Richard Byrd

PHOTO (COLOR): Antonia Maury

PHOTO (COLOR): William Herschel

PHOTO (COLOR): Roald Amundsen

PHOTO (COLOR): Charles Lindbergh

PHOTO (COLOR): Albert Einstein

PHOTO (COLOR): Archimedes

PHOTO (COLOR): Nicolas Copernicus

PHOTO (COLOR): Tycho Brahe

~~~~~~~~

by Paul Hodge

Paul Hodge is chairman of the Astronomy Department at the University
of Washington in Seattle, editor of The Astronomical Journal, and a
member of Astronomy's editorial advisory board.
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Source: Astronomy, Feb99, Vol. 27 Issue 2, p82, 4p, 3c, 7bw.
Item Number: 1448806
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