Now that Pluto is no longer considered a planet, the way is open to name all these other objects which have been held up by the issue of whether Pluto was a planet or not. Foremost among these is Xena, or 2003 UB313, the Kuiper Belt object larger than Pluto that helped fire this controversy. Today I heard that Xena has been given a name (Xena was a temporary nickname). It is now officially called Eris.
I had not heard of the goddess Eris before. I have read some descriptions of her, which say she is the goddess of discord; her Roman name is Discordia. According to one reference, she was the daughter of Zeus and Hera, and the twin sister of Ares (Roman: Mars). She is known for stirring up trouble among people, who would then fight wars (Ares' domain) to settle their issues. In particular, she was not invited to the wedding of Paris. So she threw an apple at Paris, and it said "to the fairest" (of Athena, Aphrodite, and Hestia). He threw the apple to Aphrodite, and that started the war in which Paris' nation, Troy, was defeated.
Brown, Eris' discoverer, said that was the prefect name for the dwarf planet, because it caused so much Strife (Eris' son) among astronomers deciding if Pluto was a planet. Eris has a satellite, which was temporarily called Gabrielle, Xena's sidekick. Its official name is Dysnomia, daughter of Eris and goddess of lawlessness.
These names are going to cause some discord (Eris causing Eris?). There are some who will say the astronomers took away the names Xena and Gabrielle, representing heroines who do good for people, and replace them with Eris and Dysnomia, agents of discord and evil. Maybe some fundamentalists will say that astronomers are evil.
In general, Eris seems to be a decent name for the farthest body yet discovered in the Solar System (we want to keep discord away, don't we?). To me, it seems too close to Eros, the god of love and the name of an asteroid. Now there are so many asteroids that there are going to be similar names all over the place, but we are talking here about the largest asteroid ever discovered (Eris) and the first asteroid ever to have had a man-made object land on it (Eros). To me these asteroids are too important to give them confusing names. We are now going to have to pronounce them Er's (with the "i" hardly audible) and Air Oase (with equal accents on each syllable).
Now that Pluto has been declared an asteroid, it was given a number, 134340. To me this number is far too huge and inconspicuous to give to an asteroid that is the second largest in the solar system, has more satellites than any other, and for a long time was considered a planet. I am recommending to the International Astronomical Union that Pluto be given the number 0. This number has never been assigned, because people seem to feel that the first of anything should be numbered 1 (so Ceres was numbered 1). To me, in this list, 0 means firster than the first, and so I feel it is the most appropriate number for Pluto. Eris was given the number 136199. Again such a huge number for the largest asteroid ever discovered. But it was discovered only recently.
Pluto is given a number and Xena has been given the permanent name Eris, so now I wonder about the Easter Bunny (2005 FY9) and Santa (2003 EL61). Of course these can't be the permanent names; in fact, Santa is already the name of asteroid 1288. They are temporary names. I expected the IAU to give permanent names to these objects, the third and fourth largest asteroids known, but so far they haven't. So I am waiting for them to name them. According to guidelines, they should be named for creation deities, so I am suggesting these names: Baiame (Australian aborigine), Chernobog (Slavic), and Haashch (Navajo).
