NASA has officially named a small icy rock beyond Pluto, scrapping a nickname which was accused of having Nazi connotations. It marks a new beginning for scientists studying 2014 MU69.
Image: picture.alliance/AP Photo/NASA
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NASA on Tuesday officially named the most distant world ever explored by a spacecraft "Arrokoth" after its initial nickname of "Ultima Thule" drew backlash over its Nazi connotations.
Arrokoth, or "sky" in the Native American Powhatan language, is an icy rock located 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) away from earth. NASA's New Horizon's spacecraft flew past the small icy world on New Year's Day, three and a half years after exploring Pluto.
"The name 'Arrokoth' reflects the inspiration of looking to the skies," lead scientist Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute said in a statement, "and wondering about the stars and worlds beyond our own."
The New Horizons team, operated from Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Lab in Maryland, picked the name for the rock, which had the technical designation 2014 MU69, because of the Powhatan's ties to the Chesapeake Bay region. It got consent to use the name from Powhatan tribal elders and representatives, according to NASA.
Nazi-linked nickname
The team nicknamed the world Ultima Thule after a mythical northern land in Greek and Roman literature described as the "borders of the known world."
However, that name was co-opted by far-right German occultists in the early 20th century as the fabled ancestral home of the "Aryan" people, the term used to describe proto-Indo-Europeans. Members of the Thule Society founded the political party that evolved into Adolf Hitler's Nazi party.
NASA insists Ultima Thule was only ever a nickname, according to the Agence France Presse. The American space organization did not say whether or not the Nazi controversy influenced their decision to discard the nickname.
Did you know the moon was shrinking?
If the Artemis missions go to plan, people will be walking on the moon again within a few years. So it's high time we scrubbed up our knowledge about our lunar satellite. Here are seven facts to get you going.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
The moon is shrinking!
According to NASA research, the moon is slowly losing heat, which causes its surface to shrivel up like a grape turning into a raisin. But that's not all: its interior is shrinking! The moon has become about 50 meters (150 feet) "skinnier" over the past several hundred million years.
Image: picture-alliance/Arco Images/B. Lamm
How did that US flag wave?
Conspiracy theorists believe that the lunar landing was a fake, and that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked around on July 21st, 1969, on a soundstage instead of the moon. They point to the fact that the flag planted by Aldrin waved as if moved by the wind, which would be impossible in space's vacuum. NASA's explanation: Aldrin was twisting the flagpole while planting it in the ground.
Image: picture-alliance/Photoshot/Neil A. Armstrong
Scorching hot and freezing cold
If it's summer in your neck of the woods, you might be sweating right now. But just remember: temperatures are a little more extreme on the moon. When the sun hits its surface, it can get up to 127 degrees Celsius (260 degrees Fahrenheit) hot. Without the warm glow, temperatures can drop down to -153 degrees Celsius (-243 degrees Fahrenheit). Brrr!
Image: picture alliance/dpa/S. Kahnert
Man on the moon
The myth of a person living on the moon has existed for almost as long as Earth's satellite itself. Some people see a face on the surface of the full moon, composed of the dark lunar plains and the lighter lunar highlands. Many cultures have tales about an actual person who committed some kind of misdeed and was banished to the moon for it. Astronauts are yet to encounter them, though.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/F. Rumpenhorst
Drifting apart — the end of solar eclipses
The moon is drifting away from Earth at a speed of almost 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) per year. The farther away our satellite is, the smaller it appears to us. In about 550 million years, it'll look too small to "cover" all of the sun, even at its closest position to Earth. That'll mean no more total solar eclipses.
Image: Reuters/J. Ernst
Wolves don't care
Ah, howling at the moon — no old-timey scary movie is complete without it. But in fact, wolves do not intensify their howling when a full moon rolls around, and they don't direct their howls at the moon, either. They simply yowl at night, which is also the time when a full moon is most visible. That could be one reason our ancestors drew the connection.
Image: Imago/Anka Agency International/G. Lacz
Moon-walkers: Not a very diverse bunch
12 humans have walked on the moon so far. While they come from various professional fields, they have a couple of things in common: All of them are American, all of them are white and all of them are men. Let's see where the first non-American on the moon will be from — maybe it'll be a woman and/or person of color, too!
