Pluto Is Dark And Dreary, And Now Officially The Underworld

If someone asks you to pick a planet in our solar system that most resembles the Greek kingdom of the dead, which one would you choose? If your answer is Pluto, then congratulations, you now have something in common with the folks over at NASA and the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

On Thursday, two years after the IAU endorsed NASA's “Our Pluto” naming campaign — which allowed the public to propose names for surface features that had still not been discovered — the agency approved themes submitted by NASA’s New Horizons team for naming surface features on Pluto and its moons.

Not surprisingly, most of the naming themes for Pluto relate to the underworld.

“Imagine the thrill of seeing your name suggestion on a future map of Pluto and its moons,” Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division in Washington, D.C., said in a statement released Thursday. “Months after the Pluto flyby, the New Horizons mission continues to engage and inspire.”

Even prior to IAU’s imprimatur, astronomers associated with the New Horizons mission had been informally assigning similar names to newly discovered features on the dwarf planet — Krun Macula (Krun is the lord of the underworld in the ancient Mandaean religion, and a macula is a dark feature on a planetary surface), Tartarus Dorsa (In Greek mythology, Tartarus is the name of a region of the underworld where the greatest sinners are sent for their transgressions.)

And with good reason.

Pluto is a lot like what Hades’ realm is often portrayed as, minus the souls of dead humans, of course. It is dark, cold and barren, with temperatures ranging from -400 degrees Fahrenheit to about -360 degrees Fahrenheit.

Here are the IAU-approved themes that the naming process would now stick to:

Pluto
● Gods, goddesses and other beings associated with the underworld from mythology, folklore and literature
● Names for the underworld and for underworld locales from mythology, folklore and literature
● Heroes and other explorers of the underworld
● Scientists and engineers associated with Pluto and the Kuiper Belt
● Pioneering space missions and spacecraft
● Historic pioneers who crossed new horizons in the exploration of the Earth, sea and sky

Charon
● Destinations and milestones of fictional space and other exploration
● Fictional and mythological vessels of space and other exploration
● Fictional and mythological voyagers, travelers and explorers
● Authors and artists associated with space exploration, especially Pluto and the Kuiper Belt

For Pluto’s smaller moons:
• Styx: River gods
• Nix: Deities of the night
• Kerberos: Dogs from literature, mythology and history
• Hydra: Legendary serpents and dragons