6 ms·

Can anyone elaborate why it is important to put the name of the mission in the designation of the object? There are more important attributes that which could b

Can anyone elaborate why it is important to put the name of the mission in the designation of the object? There are more important attributes that which could be encoded in the name, are there not?

tantalor 3y ago
Tell that to the "Galilean moons"
- wantoncl 3y ago
  And Charles Messier.
  - addaon 3y ago
    The problem with replacing the Messier catalog naming is just how neat and clean the single namespace ends up. There have been alternate proposals, but they all ended up messier.
_Microft 3y ago
I'd expect "GAIA" to be something like a namespace for the mission that makes it easier to pick unique names. Maybe something interesting is in these links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_naming_conventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_naming_convention... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_catalogue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_catalogue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_catalogues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_catalogues