Haumea - artist’s conception - (Wikipedia)
On Twitter, keoladonaghy wrote:
New dwarf planet and its moons named for Hawaiian deities: http://snurl.com/3rctp
Indeed, it’s true. Says Wikipedia:
Haumea (pronounced /ha??me??/ how-MAY-?, formerly assigned the designation of (136108) 2003 EL61), is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, roughly one-third the mass of Pluto….
On the naming of the planet…
Before the discovery of the object was published and designated, the Caltech team used the nickname “Santa”, which stems from its discovery just after Christmas, on December 28, 2004…. Following established IAU guidelines, the object was formally named after a deity related to a creation myth. The Caltech team submitted formal names from Hawaiian mythology [for the planet] and both of its satellites “to pay homage to the place where the satellites were discovered.”
On September 17, 2008, the…proposal to name the body “Haumea”, after the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth and fertility, had been accepted as official, with the moons named “Hi’iaka” and “Namaka“, after two of her daughters….
Further Reading
Internet Sacred Text Archive - “THE mysterious figure of Haumea in Hawaiian myth is identified, now with Papa the wife of Wakea….”
Pana Hula - Results of my personal research: Creation of the Hawaiian Islands: Papa & W?kea. Includes references to “Papa,” wife of Wakea; art by native Hawaiian artist Solomon Enos; and a simply constructed geneaological diagram, beginning with Papa and Wakea.
Note: Current web publishing configuration is not compatible with my Maori keyboard. Therefore, the Hawaiian macrons do not appear. I’m aware of the omission and sincerely apologize. I swear I’d go in and write it myself if I could.
