Name the New Gamma-Ray Space Telescope 131
Ponca City, We Love You writes "NASA announced last week that members of the general public will have a chance to suggest a new name for the cutting edge Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, otherwise known as GLAST, before it launches in mid-2008. NASA wants a name that will capture the excitement of GLAST's mission and call attention to gamma-ray and high-energy astronomy. 'We are looking for something memorable to commemorate this spectacular new astronomy mission,' said Alan Stern, associate administrator for Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. 'We hope someone will come up with a name that is catchy, easy to say and will help make the satellite and its mission a topic of dinner table and classroom discussion.' The period for submitting names closes on March 31, 2008. Participants must include a statement of 25 words or less about why their suggestion would be a strong name for the mission."
Obvious really (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Gamma rays... catchy? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you care about science breakthroughs, then high energy experiments are the place to look. This is a branch of astronomy that is decades old, rather then centuries old for optical astronomy. The relative improvement of each high energy instrument over its predecessors is huge and the science leap is correspondingly large.
Seeing the Universe for the first time in a new energy range is at least as exciting as seeing something we already know more sharply, but the images won't be as cool. I care about dark matter, physics in the presence of strong magnetic fields, gamma-ray bursts and the origin of the highest energy particles in the Universe. These won't make amazing images, but to me they are very exciting.
Excitement in science might be in the eye of the beholder.
Honestly (Score:5, Insightful)
In my opinion he should be honored by giving the name to the telescope. And considering that he actually isn't a well-known person outside the realms of the scientists working with gamma rays it's even better.
Everybody knows about Einstein, Bohr and Curie, but there are many other.
Of course - the site specifies that it isn't necessary that it's a scientist - it can be just about anybody. Just go ahead and suggest some names. I would not recommend names like "Iosif Vissarionovitj Dzjugasjvili", "Ilich Ramírez Sánchez" or "Saloth Sar", but your opinion may be different.
It's a Hulking telescope, so... (Score:3, Insightful)
How about naming it after someone (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk_(comics) [wikipedia.org]