[meteorite-list] Beatles Legend, Antiwar Author among Those Honored by Newly Named Mercury Craters

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2013 09:29:24 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201312191729.rBJHTOD5004330_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=249

MESSENGER Mission News
December 19, 2013

Beatles Legend, Antiwar Author among Those Honored by Newly Named Mercury Craters

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) -- the arbiter of planetary
and satellite nomenclature since its inception in 1919 -- recently approved
a proposal from the MESSENGER Science Team to assign names to 10 impact
craters on Mercury. In keeping with the established naming theme for craters
on Mercury, all of the newly designated features are named after "deceased
artists, musicians, painters, and authors who have made outstanding or
fundamental contributions to their field and have been recognized as art
historically significant figures for more than 50 years."

The newly named craters are

        * Barney, for Natalie Clifford Barney (1876-1972), an American-French
playwright, poet, and novelist.

        * Berlioz, for Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), a French Romantic composer
best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe
des morts.

        * Calder, for Alexander Calder (1898-1976), an American sculptor best
known as the originator of the mobile, a type of kinetic sculpture made
with delicately balanced or suspended components that move in response
to motor power or air currents.

        * Capote, for Truman Capote (1924-1984), an American author whose short
stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction include the novella Breakfast at
Tiffany's and the true-crime novel In Cold Blood.

        * Caruso, for Enrico Caruso (1873-1921), an Italian tenor who sang to
great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas and
appeared in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires
that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic.

        * Ensor, for James Sidney Ensor (1860-1949), a Belgian painter and printmaker,
considered an important influence on expressionism and surrealism.

        * Giambologna, for Jean Boulogne Giambologna (1529-1608), a Dutch sculptor
known for his marble and bronze statuary in a late Renaissance or Mannerist
style.

        * Lennon, for John Winston Ono Lennon (1940-1980), an English songwriter,
musician, and singer who rose to worldwide fame as a founding member of
the Beatles, the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed
band in the history of popular music.

        * Remarque, for Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970), a German author best
known for his novel All Quiet on the Western Front, which depicted the
horrors of war from the viewpoint of young German soldiers.

        * Vieira da Silva, for Maria Elena Vieira da Silva (1908-1992), a Portuguese-born
French painter of intricate, semiabstract compositions.

These ten newly named craters join 114 other craters named since the MESSENGER
spacecraft's first Mercury flyby in January 2008. 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/ .

"The MESSENGER team is delighted that the IAU has named an additional
10 impact craters on Mercury," said MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean
Solomon of Columbia University. "We are particularly pleased that eight
of the 10 individuals honored made all or many of their artistic contributions
in the Twentieth Century, the same century in which the MESSENGER mission
was conceived, proposed, and approved for flight. Imagine."

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 entered orbit
about Mercury on March 17, 2011 (March 18, 2011 UTC), to begin a yearlong
study of its target planet. MESSENGER's first extended mission began on
March 18, 2012, and ended one year later. MESSENGER is now in a second
extended mission, which is scheduled to conclude in March 2015. Dr. Sean
C. Solomon, the Director of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory, 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 Thu 19 Dec 2013 12:29:24 PM PST