Explorers and Navigators

Science teacher Jonathan Heiles sent a link to all of us about the international public campaign to name the surface features of Pluto and Charon.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly past Pluto in July and that far off world and its moons for the first time. Together with the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the New Horizons team will assign names to the features on the maps of Pluto and its large moon Charon. The public is encouraged to suggest names – and ideas for names – and vote for favorites.

The ballot closes on April 24, 2015.

Voters are encouraged to choose between three categories:

History of Exploration

Literature of Exploration

Mythology of the Underworld

All three lists are extensive and broken further into categories each one of which is a goldmine of ideas, references and things to learn about. You can join the discussion, suggest nominations and voters are encouraged to do their own exploring before making a decision.

For example: Here’s a list of historic explorers who pioneered the exploration of the land, sea and sky.

How many of these explorers of are you familiar with?

Among other pleasures is looking over the Tally on the Kids Ballot page. In the above category Leif Erikson was number one.

In the Fictional Travellers catagory Star Trek folks are in the lead. But Gilgamesh, Alice (in Wonderland), Ahab, Don Quijote and TinTin are in the top ten.