After years of dispute, the last unnamed dwarf planet in the solar system has finally gotten a name. It will be called Haumea, after the goddess of childbirth and fertility in Hawaiian mythology.
The International Astronomical Union, which announced the new moniker on Wednesday, has struggled with naming the object, because two teams have laid claim to its discovery.
A team led by Jose-Luis Ortiz of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in Granada, Spain, filed the original claim for the discovery in 2005. But some have disputed the claim, saying Ortiz鈥檚 group found the object by examining the observing logs of a group led Mike Brown of Caltech.
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In deference to the dispute, the name of the discoverer has been .
The location of the discovery will remain the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain, where Ortiz鈥檚 team conducted observations. But the object, formerly known as 2003 EL61, will now go by a name suggested by Brown鈥檚 team.
鈥淚t鈥檚 deliberately vague about the discoverer of the object,鈥� says Brian Marsden, secretary of the IAU Committee on Small Body Nomenclature, one of two IAU committees that are jointly responsible for naming dwarf planets. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 want to cause an international incident.鈥�
Server records
Ortiz announced the discovery on 28 July 2005, but server records showed that someone at his institution had accessed Brown鈥檚 online observing logs of the object two days earlier.
Ortiz has said he found the logs days after a graduate student showed him archived images of the object taken in March 2003. He said they had noticed a similar object described by Brown鈥檚 team in a meeting abstract posted online a few days earlier and had searched the web for more information.
But Brown, who filed a complaint with the IAU in August 2005, questioned whether the Spanish team had actually identified 2003 EL61 before seeing his abstract and telescope log.
A number of IAU members looked into the issue, though no official investigation was launched.
Despite the questions, no evidence has surfaced showing that Ortiz鈥檚 team found the object using Brown鈥檚 observing logs, which means the matter is unlikely to proceed any further.
Gods of the underworld
Marsden says the controversy over this discovery is the worst since the early 17th century dispute over who found the four biggest satellites of Jupiter. The was between Galileo and an astronomer named Simon Marius 鈥� Galileo ultimately won out.
Ortiz, who was not immediately available for comment after the decision was announced, told New 杏吧原创 on Friday: 鈥淚 am not happy, I think the [IAU] decision is unfortunate and sets a bad precedent.鈥�
His team had suggested the name Ataecina, a goddess worshiped in the ancient Iberian peninsula that was associated with the Greek goddess of the underworld, Persephone. But the IAU reserves underworld god names for objects like Pluto, whose orbits are gravitationally linked with Neptune.
Brown says he is pleased with the outcome, but notes that it is unusual that his team was allowed to name the object without being acknowledged as the official discoverer. 鈥淚 think this is as good a resolution as we鈥檒l get,鈥� he told New 杏吧原创.
Tiny moons
Haumea joins Pluto, Eris and Makemake as the only known 鈥榩lutoids鈥�, a term devised by the IAU to describe Pluto-like objects beyond Neptune.
The cigar-shaped Haumea is nearly the same size as Pluto on its long axis. Haumea spins end over end every four hours, making it one of the fastest spinning objects in the solar system.
This spin seems to come from a dramatic crash billions of years ago with another object in the distant Kuiper Belt, a ring of icy bodies beyond Neptune. That collision seems to have created Haumea鈥檚 two moons, and at least 7 other icy descendents with the same orbit around the Sun, Brown says.
The IAU has credited Brown鈥檚 team as the discoverer of Haumea鈥檚 moons. These have been named Hi鈥檌aka and Namaka after two of Haumea鈥檚 children, which are said to have formed from parts of her body.
