The naming of names for astronomical satellites is a funny game. Most are weird acronyms (WFPC, STIS, NICMOS are all Hubble cameras), which many times are puns on the mission itself (FAST). Some are named simply, after astronomers who contributed to the field of study (Chandra, Spitzer). The Swift satellite is not an acronym or named after anyone. It’s just a swift satellite.

Right now, the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope is very close to launch. But "GLAST" is not the best name. I worked on the education and public outreach for the mission for years, and sometimes the hardest part was using that name (though it made for some fun puns; I wrote articles like "The GLAST Resort"). Because of the picture we used a lot for GLAST, shown on the left, I called it the "flying cheese block".

It’s time to rename GLAST into something cool. And NASA wants you to help.

Got an idea for a new name for GLAST? Send it to NASA (through Sonoma State University)! There are some things you need to know, though. For example, it’s a gamma-ray observatory, so if you want to name it after some gamma ray pioneer, they can’t still be alive (that’s a NASA tradition). The name should be catchy, but not too silly (it’s a $350 million mission that’s managed by both NASA and the Department of Energy, so some modicum of decorum is necessary). It needs to be simple, and easy to say (so Mxyzpltlk is out, even if you try to say it backwards).

I actually don’t have too many ideas. Jan van Paradijs was a beloved astronomer who worked on gamma-ray astrophysics, but his name is too hard to spell for most Americans. Maybe some variation on it?

Please, no Mr. Spaceypants. It doesn’t matter anyway; this isn’t a vote or a contest, just a way to suggest cool names for the mission.

To get you started: GLAST will look at high-energy radiation from black holes, active galaxies, gamma-ray bursts, antimatter annihilation, and even from solar flares. If you go the acronym route, GR is not a bad combo for some good words (can we get GROK out of it? OGRE?). Gamma rays are Super High Energy, too. Also, it’s not a traditional telescope, either.

The deadline is March 31, 2008. So get thinking! Post your suggestions in the comments. Let’s see what we can come up with!

Great. It’s bad enough we have creationists screwing up our kids’ minds here in the U.S. Now they’re going global:

Europeans have long viewed the conflict between evolutionists and creationists as primarily an American phenomenon, but it has recently jumped the Atlantic Ocean with skirmishes in Italy, Germany, Poland and, notably, Britain, where Darwin was born and where he published his 1859 classic.

The money quote is this one:

“Evolution is a lie, and it’s being taught in schools as fact, and it’s leading our kids in the wrong direction,” said [cabbie James] McLean, chatting outside the chapel. “But now people like Ken Ham are tearing evolution to pieces.”

Heh. Heh heh. Hahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ken Ham couldn’t tear a wet kleenex to pieces. At least, not without lying about it first. Ham is the leader of Answers in Genesis, an organization for whom the Ninth Commandment, apparently, is optional. I was just perusing their site, and it’s incredible how many errors they make about science, some of which strain the brain to assume they aren’t intentional… but that’s for a later post.

Anyway, the news in Europe isn’t all bad:

Darwin’s defenders are fighting back. In October, the 47-nation Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, condemned all attempts to bring creationism into Europe’s schools.

2009 marks the 150th anniversary of Darwin writing The Origin of Species, and there will be lots of celebrations and other festivities. I wouldn’t be surprised if the groups like the Disco ‘tute, AiG and others plan some sort of counter-thrust against it. Well, they have that right, just as I have the right to call ‘em like I see ‘em. And if I see the threat in Europe becoming serious, well then, we’ll just have to double our efforts in exposing people like Ham for what they are.

Weirdly, that title is not as big a stretch as you might think.

NASA’s Deep Impact space probe slammed a large copper block into a comet back in July, 2005. However, the probe sailed on, and astronomers hate to waste a good thing. So the mission was retooled, and split into two major projects: for the Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI) it will continue on to observe another comet called Hartley 2, and for the EPOCh component (Extrasolar Planet Observation and Characterization) it will observe planets around other stars.

The combined mission is now called EPOXI.

The comet rendezvous isn’t until 2010. Until then, EPOXI will be used to carefully observe some stars known to have massive planets. These extrasolar planets (or exoplanets for short) were discovered using ground-based telescopes. Hundreds of planets orbiting other sunlike stars have been found since the first was discovered in 1995, but some are special: as seen from Earth, they pass directly between us and their parent star. These are called transiting planets, and some 33 are known at the moment.

Solar systems are like DVDs: wide but flat. If we see them edge-on, then a planet will pass directly in front of the star every orbit. That’s a transit.

A transit makes a fantastic resource for learning about other planets. Using some relatively simple math, you can get so much information from observing transits: the physical sizes of both the planet and its star, the planet’s density, and even (potentially) whether it has moons and the composition of its atmosphere. And all this can be done without ever having directly seen the planet! The way the light from the star dips as the planet passes in front of it tells us all this information, and more.

EPOXI is in a prime location to do this kind of observation. For one, it’s in space, so Earth’s atmosphere doesn’t muck up the view. Second, it really has nothing better to do then sit and stare at a star for weeks at a time, and that is a huge advantage^*. The more transits you see, the better you can analyze them. Also, if there is one transiting planet, there are likely to be more. Remember the DVD analogy above? Seen edge-on, the odds are good that other planets in the system will transit their star, but smaller planets make smaller dips in the starlight, making them difficult to see from Earth. EPOXI may be able to detect lower-amplitude transits like that. It will observe five different stars known to have transiting planets, looking for smaller planets, moons around the bigger ones, and other cool things.

I love this idea. Exoplanets are a fascinating subject, and they make up a field of science that has literally only been around a few years. Some transits can be observed using a backyard telescope! But the view from space is a lot better… and launch costs are pricey. Reusing an existing mission to do new science is an excellent use of resources, and a fantastic way to breathe new life into an older project.

^*And the reason I titled this post the way I did.