Name That Asteroid Hundred Years Have Elapsed Since the Per Sented Than the Discoverer's Friends
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BOOK REVIEWS considered unsuitable, unless at least a and uncles and aunts are much less repre Name that asteroid hundred years have elapsed since the per sented than the discoverer's friends. son died or the event took place. With Other asteroidal categories are cities, David Hughes these exceptions anything is fair game. countries, writers, literary figures, com Mythological names predominated in posers, plants, animals, painters and Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, the first three-quarters of the nineteenth acronyms. Second Edition. By Lutz D. Schmadel. century, but today these classical names Lutz D. Schmadel has produced an Springer: 1994. Pp. 741. DM118, $69, are almost exclusively reserved for aster absolutely delightful book. The first £46.50. oids in a 1:1 resonance with Jupiter. These edition of this rather specialized compila asteroids commemorate the Trojan war, tion was produced in late 1992 and sold BETWEEN the orbits of Mars and Jupiter the Greek besiegers preceding Jupiter and out within a few months, to the surprise of lie uncountable numbers of minor planets, their Trojan opponents following. both the author and the publisher. or asteroids - to give them their more At first, all the asteroid names were This second edition is a thoroughly prosaic modern title. Asteroid number female and anything that was vaguely revised and enlarged version. The struc one, Ceres, was discovered on New Year's masculine was given the feminine suffix of ture is, however, unchanged. The name, Day 1801. A thousand asteroids were 'a' or 'ia'. Sir Isaac Newton was honoured preliminary designation, discovery date, known by 1921 and the number reached with asteroid number 662 Newtonia, a discoverer and discovery place are given 2,000 by 1946. Over the past decade or so German marble became 711 Marmulla, for all the asteroids, together with a para asteroids have been discovered at the rate the country of Japan was commemorated graph explaining the meaning of the name of about 160 a year. By September last with 727 Nipponia and so on. This and why it was chosen. Since 1947, each year 5,655 asteroids had been numbered changed in the early twentieth century name assignment has been accompanied and of these 4,512 had been named. and now, among the 4,512 named aster by an explanation, but for many of the Numbers are assigned to asteroids oids, there is a clear preponderance of 2,000 asteroids named before then, some when their orbits are known to sufficient males to females, in the ratio of 10 to 3. detailed research had to be done. Even accuracy that they can be found at any Some people were suspicious that now, Schmadel lists 134 asteroid names time in the future. Names are a different asteroid nomenclature represented a with unknown meanings or attributions, matter. The person who discovers an cemetery for astronomers, but in fact only most of these asteroids having been dis asteroid has ten years to produce a name. a quarter of all names come from this pro covered by Maximilian Wolf and Karl There are very few restrictions on poetic fession. Many refer to the relatives of the Reinmuth at Heidelberg and M. Charlois inventiveness. The Minor Planet Names discoverers. In the case of, for example, at Nice. Committee of Commission 20 of the Ed Bowell of the Lowell Observatory, Many happy hours can be spent brows International Astronomical Union insists Arizona, and Elinor Helin of the Mount ing through this enthralling dictionary. D that the name should be pronounceable, Palomar Observatory, California, plenty preferably expressible as a single word of relatives are required -they have dis David Hughes is in the Department of and contain fewer than 16 characters. covered 341 and 154 asteroids respective Physics, University of Sheffield, Hicks Names glorifying people or events of prin ly. Among relatives, spouses seem to Building, Sheffield 53 7RH, UK - and is cipally political or military significance are prevail over both children and parents, also asteroid 4206. The Crawford treasures: a heavenly library in Edinburgh Johannes Stoffler (1452-1531) achieved fame for calculating 50 years of ephemerides (calender of the daily movement of the planets), but today he is more widely admired for this richly illustrated book on the making and use of an astrolabe. The work, which spawned a host of imitators, is currently on display in "A Heavenly Library: Treasures from the Royal Observatory's Crawford Collection", an exhibition at the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh (until 31 December). The collection was put together over a century ago by James Ludovic Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford, an amateur astronomer and a bibliophile, and stands today as one of the finest libraries of rare astronomical books. An exhibition catalogue is available from the observatory at £12.50 (pbk). 756 NATURE · VOL 371 · 27 OCTOBER 1994 .