[meteorite-list] MESSENGER Team Launches 'Name a Crater' Competition

[Ron Baalke]

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=268

MESSENGER Mission News
December 16, 2014

MESSENGER Team Launches "Name a Crater" Competition

The MESSENGER Education and Public Outreach Team is holding a competition 
to name five impact craters on Mercury. The contest, open to all Earth 
citizens except for members of the mission's EPO team, runs from December 
15, 2014, to January 15, 2015.

The spacecraft -- scheduled to impact Mercury in the spring -- has surpassed 
its originally planned primary orbital mission by three years. The EPO 
team organized the competition to celebrate the mission's achievements, 
said MESSENGER EPO Project Manager Julie Edmonds, of the Carnegie Institution 
of Washington.

"This brave little craft, not much bigger than a Volkswagen Beetle, has 
traveled more than 8 billion miles since 2004 -- getting to the planet 
and then in orbit," Edmonds said. "We would like to draw international 
attention to the achievements of the mission and the guiding engineers 
and scientists on Earth who have made the MESSENGER mission so outstandingly 
successful."

The MESSENGER team set out to take 2,500 images of the planet, but the 
spacecraft has returned more than 250,000 images. "We now have a detailed, 
high-resolution map of the entire planet," Edmonds noted. "As scientists 
study the incredible data returned by MESSENGER, it becomes important 
to give names to surface features that are of special scientific interest. 
Having names for land forms such as mountains, craters, and cliffs makes 
it easier for scientists and others to communicate." For example, she 
said, it's easier to refer to a feature as "Mt. Everest," rather than 
"the 8,484-meter peak located at a latitude of 27 degrees, 59 minutes, 
17 seconds N, and longitude of 86 degrees, 55 minutes, 31 seconds E."

According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the arbiter of 
planetary and satellite nomenclature since its inception in 1919, all 
new craters must be named after an artist, composer, or writer who was 
famous for more than 50 years and has been dead for more than three years. 
See the current list of named Mercury craters.
http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/SearchResults?target=MERCURY&featureType=Crater,%20craters

Edmonds said participants should first research the individual they are 
considering before filling out the contest entry. "Once online, registrants 
will be asked to submit a short description of the individual's contributions 
to the arts, music, or literature, as well as an authoritative source 
for background information," she said.

The name should not have any political, religious, or military significance. 
It is also essential that there be no other features in the Solar System 
with the same name, she said. For example, Ansel Adams is not eligible 
because there is a feature on the Moon with the name Adams (even though 
it was not named for Ansel). Participants can check their ideas against 
the list of named Solar System features and enter the name in the "Search 
by Feature Name" box in the upper-right corner.

All entries will be reviewed by MESSENGER Team representatives and other 
experts. A short list of 15 names (three names per crater) will be submitted 
to the IAU, who will make the final selection.

Winning submissions will be announced by the IAU to coincide with the 
end of MESSENGER's mission operations in late March or April 2015.

Enter the contest online at http://namecraters.carnegiescience.edu/.
MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) 
is a NASA-sponsored scientific investigation of the planet Mercury and 
the first space mission designed to orbit the planet closest to the Sun. 
The MESSENGER spacecraft was launched on August 3, 2004, and entered orbit 
about Mercury on March 17, 2011 (March 18, 2011 UTC), to begin a yearlong 
study of its target planet. MESSENGER's first extended mission began on 
March 18, 2012, and ended one year later. MESSENGER is now in a second 
extended mission, which is scheduled to conclude in March 2015. Dr. Sean 
C. Solomon, the Director of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth 
Observatory, leads the mission as Principal Investigator. The Johns Hopkins 
University Applied Physics Laboratory built and operates the MESSENGER 
spacecraft and manages this Discovery-class mission for NASA.