Surface Features Of Pluto And Its Moons Get Official Names; Relates To Underworld Gods
The dwarf planet was delisted from the planets list years back and now there are discussions to bring it back into the planets list. Interestingly, the land features of Pluto and its moons get names in new themes by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The new names will be in the lines of how Pluto was named; Pluto is named after the Roman underworld god, who has also name Hades in Greek mythology.
It was in mid-2015, people got more information regarding the land features of the dwarf planet when the NASA's New Horizons spacecraft inched towards it. The observations showed that the planet has a diverse landscape that includes mountain ranges, icy plains, and rifts among others. It has also shown a large heart-shaped region with various land-forms in the planet. The mission team has given various names to these land features but it was informal and now it is going to be official.
The IAU met a meeting recently and decided to go ahead with the names of land features of the planet and its moons. IAU is responsible for naming different celestial bodies and its features officially has now declared that it has accepted the named given by the team of New Horizons. Since the name of Pluto is associated with mythical gods, many of the features names are also related to Hades or related to after death. One of the moons is named as Charon, the guy who carried souls and crossed the river Styx to reach Hades. Another small moon has named as Styx.
The large heart-shaped land feature is called as Tombaugh Regio - named after the man who discovered Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh. Since many of these names are fit into the theme of Pluto, most of the submitted names got approved and the rest are in the process of approval. The land features of Pluto's moons also would get names. Charon has a list including fictional vessels, voyagers, and destinations while Styx is expected to get names of various river gods. It is important to note that IAU would reject the names that are not within the guidelines and won't accept all the names submitted.
