They Finally Named Santa

Well it looks like there will be no Santa this Christmas. Children will still get their gifts, but the Kuiper Belt Object that up to now has been called Santa has just received a permanent name.

The object is 2003 EL₆₁, discovered in 2005 along with Eris and Makemake, which was officially named a few months ago. It took nearly three years to name Santa, and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) finally did so on 2008 September 22 or so. They named it Haumea, a Hawaiian goddess of childbirth and of stone. I had heard it was going to be named after a Hawaiian creation god. So I figured it was going to be named Kane, a Hawaiian god of creation. Childbirth can be thought of as a creation, so "Haumea" still fits the pattern. Haumea has two satellites, and I thought they were going to be named Hi'iaka and Pele.

The object is weirdly shaped, like an American football with rounded corners, because of its rapid rotational spin of 4 hours. It has two small satellites, which were named Hi'iaka and Namaka, so I got one of them right. Haumea is 50 astronomical units (AU) away, and gets as close as 35 AU at times. It takes 285 years to revolve around the Sun. It is thought to consist mostly of rock, with a thick ice crust.

The IAU also said that it was a plutoid. I do not like the concept of plutoid, because the name is biased to one particular instance of the concept. Similar terminologies would call globular clusters such as M13, M92, and Omega Centauri galaxioids, and stars such as Vega and Arcturus sunoids. Further, it is inconsistent. Ceres is a plutoid, but Orcus is not; it is almost as large, and neither are Sedna, Quaoar, Ixion, or Varuna. In my opinion all of these should be called plutoids if Ceres is one. But I think the whole concept should be dropped altogether.

Makemake

I see now that astronomers have named 2005 FY₉, temporarily known as the Easterbunny, since it was discovered shortly after Easter in 2005, after 3 years without an official name. They have named it Makemake. No, that is not a makefile in Unix that creates makefiles. That is mock kay mock kay. It is the Rapanui deity god of creation, and Rapa Nui is Easter Island, so the name still relates to Easter. Cool. The name is also good because it is a reminder of what we could all become if we keep producing human beings and consuming resources. Makemake is a large Kuiper Belt object discovered at about the same time as Eris, the larges of the objects. I still don't like the name "plutoid" to describe Makemake, Eris, and Pluto. Why not call Antares and Regulus sunoids?

They still have not named 2003 EL₆₁ yet. It has the temporary name of Santa, as it was discovered near Christmas day. In an earlier post I note that they are going to name it after a Hawaiian creation god. To me this gives it the name of Kane (pronounced con-neigh, not like the Citizen), as Kane was the Hawaiian creation god. Its two satellites then are Pele and Hiiaka. They should hurry up and name it. It has been 5 years now. In an earlier post, I named the object Kane, and I will still call it Kane.

Plutoid?

Now I hear the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has come up with a name for objects like Pluto and Eris that are much bigger than Mars-Jupiter asteroids but not large enough to call planets. If they are in the Kuiper Belt, then they will be called "plutoids". Plutoids??? They tried "pluton" earlier, but that makes it sound like an elementary particle, and it is the word for Pluto in some languages, including Spanish. So that fizzled.

Now I know that the small objects mostly between Mars and Jupiter were called "asteroids"; or "aster" meaning star and "oid", means like but not quite. The name implies that they are some kind of near star, however, like a brown dwarf. Since they are a near planet instead, they are also called planetoids. And while writing this, with brown dwarfs, plutoids, and KBOs, I began to think that this is getting curiouser and curiouser, like Alice going down the Rabbit Black Hole and finding all these strange creatures running around.

But can we apply this type of terminology all over the place? A while ago, asteroids in video games were called "roids", taking just the last symbol. That name can also apply to planetoids, steroids, and a number of other oids; it is quite ambiguous. So I should think that astronomers should get out of the oid game, instead of calling big KBOs "plutoids". What's next? Are other stars in the universe going to be called "sunoids"?

I think the IAU would be better off finding names for Easterbunny (2005 FY₉) and Santa (2003 EL₆₁), two objects that have been discovered years ago but not received any official name. It's been three years now. I read that both need to be named after creation deities, and that Santa was going to be named after a Hawaiian one. So I looked up Hawaiian creation myths and found that Kane created the world, according to Hawaiian legend. That's pronounced Con-Neigh and has nothing to do with the Citizen by that name. I've waited long enough. I am going to call Santa from now on Kane, and its two moons Pele and Hiiaka. If more time passes, I am also going to give Easterbunny a name.

Nuthatchlings

We have a birdhouse in our back yard that we bought from Ukrops a number of years ago. I put it up in our back yard before the spring of 2006. Since then a different species of bird has made that house its nest and has raised baby birds in it. In 2006 it was chickadees, and in 2007 it was titmice (or titmouses? - the bird does not seem to have anything to do with the small mammal).

This year, in 2008, it is nuthatches. I have seen nuthatches go in and out from that house, so I felt there were nuthatchlings in that box. I went out there today and took a picture. Sure enough, there were nuthatchlings there - six of them. They are almost fully grown, so any day now I can expect to see about half a dozen nuthatches in our back yard. Here they are: .

What will it be next year? I originally bought it advertised as a bluebird house, but bluebirds have rejected it.