Chapter XXII
The people who name things that they discover are an ever so human bunch. For example, the Latin nomenclature for the cataloging of biological species, first devised during the Enlightenment’s scientific revolution by the Swedish botanist Karl von Linné, still holds sway today. The rules are relatively straightforward. Devise a name that either describes a salient feature – such as a big nose, or the place that it was found – like the Neander Valley, or just Latinize the name of the discoverer – as with John Brown.
Naming conventions within astronomy, however, are ever so much more interesting, since much has been borrowed from man’s classical past, when astronomy and astrology were one in the same. Constellations, stars, planets, moons, identifiable features on the moon and Mars, all carry on this classical heritage. But there are only a finite number of classical names available, and so occasionally famous personalities find their names affixed to celestial objects, topographical features, and the like. One can also detect from time to time playfulness among the astronomical community. A good example was Asteroid 4179 (formerly 1989 AC) that was coined Toutatis by its discoverer Christian Pollas. The whimsy here is that the asteroid is named after the Celtic or Gallic god “whose name is invoked often in the well-known comic book series Les Aventures d’Asterix, set in ancient Gaul.” Clearly, the chuckle is very French, but other such arcane examples could just as easily be trotted out.
It began on May 13th, 1994, when a second-year graduate student from the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy noted optically a possible track of a new asteroid. Working initially from a series of photographic plates taken by her thesis director from the ten meter Keck I Observatory atop Mauna Kea, three things came to mind.
What am I going to call it? Does this represent a publication opportunity? And most important of all, am I looking at a possible thesis topic?
What Becky Hildebrand did not know at the time was she had hit the veritable jackpot. After she had dutifully logged her findings in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s database as A(steroid) 1994 RAvMH – her full initials – it would not be until five months later that two friends, one in Japan and the other in Italy, could confirm her sighting. They also were able to provide her with critical data from which she could begin to calculate the asteroid’s orbital path, or establish even if it had one.
The variables to be considered and dense mathematics behind the extrapolation of a celestial body’s peripatetic meanderings require powerful computers and even more powerful programming. Fortunately for Becky, she had both at her disposal. What she had to do was to connect the dots and draw a line, all while she and the object were both moving spatially and over time. Then, once this rough three-dimensional mathematical plot had been established, the next set of variables regarding gravitation had to be factored in that might perturb the course of that theoretical, mathematical plot.
Even using the big Cray II at Livermore, it took twenty-two minutes of run time – a near eternity in a world calculated in nanoseconds – to generate Becky’s first plot. Now, it was up to her to interpret its meaning. After she had hovered over the data, Becky’s brows began to furrow in recognition.
Wow, this sucker is really moving! Just on the basis of the three positions and five months’ time, this baby has really covered a lot of ground. I wonder . . . She flipped back and forth between several pages of data output and another thought came to mind.
Given its current velocity and course, assuming nothing else perturbs it, besides its expected resonance with Jupiter, it should be in our immediate neighborhood in mid- to late-2012.
Wow, that’s really cooking!
After more flipping back and forth of the green bar printout, some dismay if not disbelief began to creep into Becky’s mind.
The extrapolation puts A 1994 RAvMH into a near perfect match with the plane of the Earth’s orbit in 2012, but the question is – where will the Earth be when it passes by? And, of course, by how far?
Then reaching up and taking out a folder marked “Orbital Intersections,” she thumbed through it and realized that Asteroid 4179 Toutatis was on a similar course, but ahead of hers. In short, hers and Toutatis would be in the Earth’s neighborhood at nearly the same time. It was just that hers was closing in on Toutatis and Earth at a significantly higher rate.
At this point in her analysis, Becky knew that she needed to have another pair of eyes take a look at the data – maybe several. If she was right, and she had seen plenty of similar data elsewhere within the NEAT database, then she, Rebecca Ann von Müller Hildebrand had found herself a real live near-Earth asteroid! That meant publication, and if her instincts were dead on, a for sure thesis topic.
Heck, maybe I might even be able to beg some radar time on the Goldstone and Arecibo arrays as well!
Becky also knew she needed to come up with a name for her asteroid, something dignified, something with significance, and after some thought, the perfect name came to her. Being third generation Hawaiian, her great-granddaughter, a German trade representative who fell in love with the Big Island, settled down and shrewdly sank all of his assets into a sizable chunk of land in what is now north Hilo. This meant that the asteroid’s name had to be something Hawaiian. And since she discovered her swift celestial body – virtually speaking that is – at the Keck I Observatory atop Mauna Kea, logic demanded that the asteroid be dubbed Poliahu – the Hawaiian goddess of snowy Mauna Kea.
Four months and several more observations later, Becky was urged by her thesis director to publish what she had.
“Beck, gosh darn it, don’t sit on this any longer. It’s just too hot. You’ve done your due diligence. Now have the guts to let the rest of the astronomical community in on Poliahu. Their observations will only help fine-tune your own brilliant analysis.”
He then added for emphasis, “This paralysis-by-over-analysis shit has got to end now!”
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” began the beautifully coiffed television news anchor.
“It is not often that we can offer you an important news story that has yet to happen, but in eighteen years’ time, in September of 2012, scientists say that the Earth will be visited by not one, but two near-asteroid flybys. The first was discovered back in 1989 by a French scientist, the second just this year by our own Rebecca Ann Hildebrand, an astronomy student at the University of Hawaii.”
Shift to a still shot of the Keck I Observatory atop Mauna Kea with the narrative continuing.
“Here, atop the volcano Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s Big Island, astronomers can see with their powerful telescopes far into the heavens.”
Shift to a split screen video interview with a smiling and tanned young face with a wall of blinking and important-looking electronic gear in the background on the right, the anchor in her New York studio on the left.
“So, Rebecca . . .”
“No, just Becky, if you don’t mind.”
The anchor, visually a bit taken aback at being interrupted during her all-important airtime, corrected with a hardened smile.
“Oh, okay, Becky. Why did you name the asteroid Poliahu?”
“Oh, that’s easy. Poliahu is the Hawaiian snow goddess of Mauna Kea. Since I’m native Hawaiian and first to discover the asteroid’s trail from atop Mauna Kea, voilà, Poliahu!” The attractive young woman smiled back.
“Oh, how interesting,” blathered on the anchor, who had never before considered that a native Hawaiian could connote anything other than a brown-skinned Polynesian wearing a grass skirt, much less one using a French phrase. Finally rallying, she looked down at her notes and continued, “And about this asteroid you discovered, just how close to the Earth will it come? I mean, will we be able to see it in the night sky?
“Will you be able to see it with a naked eye? Oh, no. It’s a dark asteroid. It’s not a comet,” the young smiling face corrected. “But how close it will come to Earth, well it is an NEA for sure. That stands for ‘near-Earth asteroid.’”
Gritting out a smile through her almost locked jaws, the announcer then asked, “Well, Becky, just how close is close?”
At the question, Becky’s head tilted slightly and her eyes squinted in thought before she replied, “Well, that is a very good question. It could come as close to the Earth as five one-thousandths of an AU, or astronomical unit.”
Upon realizing and seeing the interviewer’s lack of comprehension, Becky elaborated, “In other words, about twice the distance between the Earth and the moon at perigee, or about 740,000 kilometers. That’s about 460,000 miles. And in astronomical terms, that’s very, very close. Very close indeed.”
“Oh, how interesting,” was the glazed reply.