[meteorite-list] Recently Named Mercury Craters Honor Blues Singer and Animation Pioneer

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2012 14:14:18 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201212212214.qBLMEIuX012126_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=234

MESSENGER Mission News
December 21, 2012

Recently Named Mercury Craters Honor Blues Singer and Animation Pioneer

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) recently approved a proposal
from the MESSENGER Science Team to assign names to nine impact craters
on Mercury. The IAU has been the arbiter of planetary and satellite
nomenclature since its inception in 1919. In keeping with the
established naming theme for craters on Mercury, all of the newly
designated features are named after famous deceased artists, musicians,
or authors or other contributors to the humanities. The newly named
craters are:

    * Catullus, for Gaius Valerius Catullus (ca. 84 BC-ca. 54 BC), a
      Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still
      read widely and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.

    * Disney, for Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (1901-1966), an American
      film maker, actor, and animator who, along with his brother Roy O.
      Disney, co-founded Walt Disney Productions, which later became one
      of the best-known motion picture producers in the world.

    * Hopper, for Edward Hopper (1882-1967), a prominent American
      realist painter and printmaker. Although he was most popularly
      known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a
      watercolorist and printmaker in etching.

    * Joplin, for Scott Joplin (1868-1917), an African-American
      composer and pianist who wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one
      ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first pieces, the
      "Maple Leaf Rag," became ragtime's first and most influential hit
      and has been recognized as the archetypal rag.

    * Kobro, for Katarzyna Kobro (1898-1951), a prominent Polish
      sculptor who co-founded the AR ("Revolutionary Artists" or
      "avant-garde Actual"). She is credited with revolutionizing
      thinking about sculpture. Her work explored the relations between
      the art object, the audience, and the surrounding space.

    * Komeda, for Krzysztof Komeda (1931-1969), a Polish film music
      composer and jazz pianist best known for his work in film scores.
      He wrote the scores for Roman Polanski's films "Rosemary's Baby,"
      "The Fearless Vampire Killers," "Knife in the Water," and
      "Cul-de-sac." His album "Astigmatic" (1965) is widely regarded as
      one of the most important European jazz albums.

    * Kyosai, for Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-1889), a Japanese artist who
      attained a reputation as a caricaturist. In addition to his
      caricatures, Kyosai painted a large number of pictures and
      sketches, often choosing subjects from the folklore of his country.

    * Popova, for Lyubov Popova (1889-1924), a Russian painter,
      graphic artist, theatrical designer, applied artist, and
      illustrator. She painted in a Cubo-Futurist style and designed
      fabrics and agitprop books and posters.

    * Waters, for McKinley "Muddy Waters" Morganfield (1915-1983), an
      African-American blues musician, generally considered the father
      of modern "Chicago blues." He was a major inspiration for the
      British blues explosion in the 1960s and is ranked No. 17 in
      /Rolling Stone/ magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All
      Time.

These nine newly named craters join 86 other craters named since the
MESSENGER spacecraft's first Mercury flyby in January 2008. "Kawanabe
Kyosai, 19th century Japanese artist and now namesake of Kyosai crater
on Mercury, changed the first character of his name from one meaning
'crazy' in Japanese to one meaning 'enlightenment' upon being released
from prison," notes William Vaughan, a Ph.D. student at Brown University
who, as a member of MESSENGER Geology Discipline Group, was involved in
selecting the names. "I hope that careful study of Kyosai crater will
similarly reward us with enlightenment about Mercury's enigmatic geology."

Images of several of the craters can be found in the MESSENGER Science
Images Gallery including Cattalus
<http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?image_id=938>,
Disney
<http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?image_id=876>,
and Waters
<http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?image_id=764>.
All of the newly named craters can be explored interactively on a global
map of Mercury, with instructions available online at
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?image_id=1053.

"The MESSENGER team appreciates the timely approval by IAU of the names
for this new list of impact craters," adds MESSENGER Principal
Investigator Sean Solomon of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory. "Because these features are areas of active geological
study by our team, the formal names will make it easier to communicate
our findings to colleagues in the planetary sciences. More importantly,
the naming of these features marks another opportunity to honor those on
our planet who have advanced the arts across many eras and cultures."

More information about the names of features on Mercury and the other
objects in the Solar System can be found at the U.S. Geological Survey's
Planetary Nomenclature Web site:
http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/index.html .

------------------------------------------------------------------------

MESSENGER Team Member Highlight

Christopher Hash helped create the data processing scheme for
MESSENGER's Science Operations Center. Read more about his role on the
mission online at http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/who_we_are/member_focus.html.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 launched on August 3, 2004, and
after flybys of Earth, Venus, and Mercury will start a yearlong study of
its target planet in March 2011. Dr. Sean C. Solomon, of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, 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.
Received on Fri 21 Dec 2012 05:14:18 PM PST