Talk:Naming of moons

message: I know this is a stupid question, but why isn't Earth's moon discussed here? The wikipedia community has a larger than average percentage of people trying to call our moon (the Moon), Luna. I'm guessing these are just sci-fi fans, but perhaps this deserves a brief discussion anyway? Lunokhod 16:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is the [[Moon]] excluded from this article? 

message: We need a reference to Flammarion's naming suggestion. It is not in the same book as his Triton, since said book was published 12 years before Amalthea's discovery... Urhixidur 03:22, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Amalthea (moon)]] 

message: I'm wondering how satellite nomenclature works for languages other than English. Does anyone have any information they could add to the article?
I used to assume the rule was that since satellites were named after mythological or fictional entities, however you refer to that entity in your language is what you should call the satellite. Thus Saturn IX was named after the Titan Φοίβη, and Italians refer to that mythological character as Febe, so they should call the satellite Febe. But the French call her Phœbé, so that's the correct satellite name for them.
But I now get the impression that the situation is more complex. Thus to make the e/a rule work, the IAU gave a satellite the name Iocaste. This may mean that using Giocasta in Italian is not an option. Also one of Pluto's satellites is named after the goddess Nyx, but we are instructed to use a specific spelling "Nix." What I'm saying is it's not just a matter of using your language's name for the mythological figure, you have to use a certain spelling specified by the IAU.
Has this language situation ever been cleared up by the IAU? Have they ever said that only the forms in the English-language circulars are official, or something like that? Or has it been specified that language communities can use whatever the normal local spelling is? --Cam 05:31, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I know, the IAU does nothing to keep straight the nomenclature in other languages than English. I'm not even sure what the IAU's official languages are. I've spent a lot of time looking up the names in other languages, and the results have been consigned to the French wiktionary: just look up the moon name in English, jump to the French name, and you'll have a long list of translations. Try wikt:fr:Erriapus, for example. (If you don't recognise the French names of the languages, just edit the page to reveal their ISO codes) Urhixidur (talk) 04:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In Italian Wikipedia they are translated anyway: :it:Giocasta (astronomia), :it:Notte (astronomia). Double sharp (talk) 11:25, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Spellings, languages, etc.

message: As of 1 January 1609, there were no known moons other than our own and the ancient claims that moons had been discovered around Jupiter and Saturn.
::There are no such ancient claims.  Some people have tried to read sighting of moons into past astronomical observations, or reports that might have been astronomical observations, or myths, or what have you.  Whether or not anything was seen that might have been a moon is not really at issue (the scenario is barely plausible, though still unlikely, for Jupiter, impossible for Saturn) -- the fact is that before Galileo the concept of a body orbiting a planet other than Earth was completely unknown -- it even took Galileo a while to appreciate what he was seeing. RandomCritic 20:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not so simple; see Moons of Uranus#Spurious moons.  In 1790 it was believed that there were fifteen, not thirteen moons, as John Herschel had reported the discovery of two additional moons.  By 1795 it was seventeen.  It wasn't until Lassell's reexamination of the Saturnian system that these four moons were determined to be spurious; but at the same time Lassell turned up two hitherto unknown moons, for a net reduction of two. RandomCritic 20:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Favour" is a term of uncertain value.  In certain quarters, e.g. in popular science articles, and encyclopedia articles -- the Mayrian names of the Galilean satellites had long been in use.  In more formal astronomical articles they were less common, but were still used.  As early as 1893 a "Nautical Almanac" had apparently revived the names.  In 1905 there was further talk talk of revival. In 1906 and 1907 the names were being used  without apology. It looks as though the discovery of Jupiter VI and VII in 1904-1905 was a strong impetus for the re-adoption of the names. RandomCritic 20:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Snapshots of moon names

message: How do you refer to a moon of a planet using the roman numeral designation? Would Luna be "Sol III I"? Or is there some other convention? I imagine this might come up when referring to the satellite of a planet that has not been named, but the star has. Thus the planet only has a Roman numeral designation. So how would one refer to satellites of such a planet? --Buddy13 (talk) 00:44, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Exoplanets are given designations of the star's name, followed by a lower case letter in order of discovery, starting with 'b'. I don't know what the naming of exomoons would be.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.187.204.13 (talk) 16:27, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It's just like for our own planets, e.g. Kepler-1625b I. Double sharp (talk) 11:23, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roman numerals for moons OF planets. 

message: According to the chart of Pre-IAU names under Timeline, the Moon was named in 3060 BCE. This was added in an edit on 3 March 2012 by Whoop whoop pull up, who seems to be a serious editor with plenty of good contributions, so I doubt it was some silly joke, bizarre hobby horse, etc. But it's hard to see how someone could type "3060 BCE" by mistake, and I can't think of any way it even remotely makes sense. I'm going to remove the date; hopefully Whoop whoop pull up will notice and explain what he was thinking and put the appropriate information in that he intended.
For reference: The English word "Moon" is probably around 1000-1500 years old (I don't know exactly when it developed from "mona"). The PIE stem is probably from around 3700 BCE +/- 1500 years, and 3060 does fall within that range, but I can't imagine how anyone could seriously guess to the decade—and besides, people have probably had a name for the Moon for almost as long as we've had language, so there wouldn't be anything special about, e.g., PIE settling on *menses, or an early divergence splitting into *menes (ancestral to "Moon") and *meses (not). (I suppose a Young Earth Creationist might be able to guess to the decade, but he'd probably guess to the day, somewhere in late 4004 BCE.) --70.36.140.68 (talk) 04:36, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  3060 BCE? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The timeline suggests Hippocamp was named in 2018, which it wasn't. This needs to be corrected. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich  Talk 07:01, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, what we need is a separation between numbering and naming dates. Double sharp (talk) 21:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: , sort of. So I guess we have to make it clear that numbering and naming now happen at different times. Double sharp (talk) 21:27, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

text: Double sharp (talk) 09:52, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hippocamp not named 2018. 

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message: Actually Jupiter XIV through XVI were already named in 1982, except that XIV and XV were mistakenly swapped. Added to the article. Double sharp (talk) 09:43, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  First few IAU names 

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