Saturday, March 1, 2014

Name this moon, win a prize (which would be the name of the moon)


Interesting article about bi-lobed Trojan asteroid Hektor, which apparently is orbited by a much smaller asteroid moonlet, and apparently will be orbited by said moonlet for a long, long time.  The article describes how the authors determined that the orbit of this moonlet around Hektor is very stable.

What it also says is that you can send ideas for the name of the unnamed moon to the authors. The writer of the article had an idea for a name;  see below.

Bizarre orbit of weird asteroid's moon revealed  (which is a great title for an article, by the way)

"Eight years after its discovery, Hektor’s moon remains nameless and Marchis and his team will consider any nomination from the public. If I had to make a suggestion, I’d vote for the name Astyanax, the son of Hector, Crown Prince of Troy and Princess Andromache of Cilician Thebe"   (followed by this note:  "NOTE: There is, in fact, an asteroid named 1871 Astyanax, another Trojan asteroid. But my nomination still stands for Astyanax, little moon of Hektor. The IAU may need some convincing, however.")

How about Durendal?



 

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