sometimes telescopes are named after famous scientists, or people who donate loads of money to build them, or an acronym relating to the type of science it will do, etc... as this sixty symbols episode on the diameter of telescopes illustrates, we are severely lacking in creative new telescope names, considering the big one they talk about is the ELT which stands for "extremely large telescope!"
so on twitter, a friend suggested that if we name the ELT something a bit more attention-grabbing for current times, maybe we could guarantee funding! he suggested OBAMA, and like any good scientific name, we have been trying to turn OBAMA into an acronym!! mine is OBAMA: Overwhelmingly Big Aperture Measures All!
NASA recently had a contest to name a new Mars rover. the winner was a 12-year-old girl from kansas who suggested possibly my favorite name for any tool of astronomy: curiosity.
can you think of any good names for telescopes or other universe explorers?
Saturday, July 4, 2009
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