![]() Some of these names, such as Cthulhu Regio, Balrog Macula, or Spock crater, were related to science-fiction and fantasy literature and clearly out of the boundaries of IAU’s traditional themes. The team also added to the list some of the names they had been used informally during science operations.Īlthough the IAU has insisted in keeping the naming scheme limited to the approved list of themes, some controversy arose in 2015 when researchers began to use informal names for Pluto’s features in different communications, including research papers. NASA’s New Horizons team made the naming proposal to the IAU after collecting suggestions from the public during an on-line campaign called Our Pluto. The themes are pioneering space missions, historic explorers who crossed new frontiers, scientists and engineers who contributed to our knowledge of Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, and underworld mythology - since the names of Pluto and its five moons already fell in that category. Pluto's just-approved names belong to four broad themes previously accepted by IAU. (The IAU is empowered by the world's astronomers as the the sole naming authority for astronomical objects and its features.) All of these remained devoid of officially-sanctioned monikers two years after the flyby of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft that obtained high-resolution images of the dwarf planet’s surface for the first time. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has officially approved the names of 14 geological features on the surface of Pluto. First official names of surface features on Pluto on a map compiled from images and data obtained by the New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby in 2015. Now the IAU has released official names for some of its surface features. ![]() It’s been two years since New Horizons captured the first high-resolution image of Pluto.
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