WEB DESK: The mighty planet Jupiter has five moons with new names suggested by the public: Pandia, Ersa, Eirene, Philophrosyne and Eupheme.
The names, which were largely suggested by children, came through a contest run by the Carnegie Institution for Science with the approval of the International Astronomical Union, the official arbitrator of astronomical names.
Traditionally, the IAU assigns a temporary name to newly found objects (such as planets and moons) before coming up with a process to assign a permanent name. In more recent years, the public has had a chance to come up with names in a few contests, for alien stars and planets as well as Mercury craters, among other objects.
Participants in the Jovian contest earlier this year had to contend with technical requirements dictated by the IAU.
Those mandates included staying within character limits and matching the direction of the moon’s orbit, which affects the final letter of the name. And that was only a start.
