Hasta La Gadget!

SETI’s best known for its search for sentient life in the cosmos, but when the Hubble space telescope found a pair of new moons orbiting Pluto (at SETI’s behest), it decided to do some planetoid naming, too. Today, SETI announced those names: Styx and Kerberos. The institute didn’t grant titles to the moons itself, however. Instead, it put the onus on the public to come up with the proper names — with instructions from the International Astronomical Union (IAU) that the nomenclature have something to do with the mythological underworld known as Hades. Voting lasted for two weeks, and SETI received over 450,000 regular votes and around 30,000 write-ins. Though many wished for the moons to be named for Stephen Colbert or the Romulan home world, the IAU found those choices to be unfit for the new moons. Instead, we have Styx (the river that separates earth from the underworld) and Kerberos (the three-headed dog that serves as the guardian to Hades) — who said studying Classics was a waste of time?

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Source: SETI Institute

P4 and P5 aren’t the sorts of names that impart the manner of excitement space exploration companies and organizations are looking to inspire in the next generation of enthusiasts (nor the customers, philanthropists and tax payers destined to fund those explorations). The SETI Institute, a private non-profit, best known for its ties to the eponymous search for extraterrestrial intelligence in the universe, is looking to add a little bit of audience participation to the act of naming Pluto’s newly discovered moons, which sport those rather uninspired alphanumeric designations.

Beginning today, SETI will open up an online contest to name the moons, both of which were discovered via the Hubble Telescope fairly recently. As with the rest of the dwarf planet’s moons, the organization’s asking that the names be associated with Hades (the underworld), with ties to Greek or Roman mythology. SETI will pre-select candidates and is also allowing for write-in candidates (though it’s retaining editorial discretion here, so, for better or worse, we’re not likely to see a Baba Booey moon in the near future).

On a recent trip to the Bay Area, we had the opportunity to speak to Mark Showalter, the senior research scientist at the organization’s Carl Sagan Center, an astronomer who played a key role in the discovery of the celestial bodies. You can check out that interview just after the break, before heading off to vote. Showalter is also co-hosting a Google+ Hangout with astronomer Hal Weaver today at 2PM ET.

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Source: Pluto Rocks