How to get a planetoid named after you

Traditionally, newly discovered planets are named after members of the Roman pantheon. This discriminatory custom has always excluded mere mortals. Luckily enough the naming process for planetoids is not as exclusive.

Earlier this month, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) approved the names for a number of new planetoids, four of which were Dutch. The pieces of space debris, measuring four to seven kilometres in diameter, now bear the names of two Dutch rebel counts, decapitated in the seventeenth century war against the Spanish, and two dead Dutch writers, born in the 20th century.

They join the ranks of 294 fellow countrymen who have already had a planetoid named after them. While this might seem like a lot, at least 20.000 planetoids have already been named -- the Sex and the City character Carrie Bradshaw and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche among them -- and the total number of interplanetary objects with a diameter of at least one kilometre drifting through the solar system is estimated somewhere between one and two million.

The IAU, however, has strict criteria: only the 228,203 registered planetoids whose orbit has been described in detail qualify for proper naming. The only way to acquire naming rights is by actually discovering a planetoid. But one can also try to persuade an astronomer who has made such a discovery.

Loes Timmermans, a book collector from Haarlem, lobbied planetoid hunter Tom Gehrels, looking to have a celestial body named after Godfried Bomans. This Dutch writer was never awarded a literary prize in his life but has now become an eternal part of another firmament.

Carl Koppeschaar, a Dutch science journalist, has also successfully proposed one of his favourite writers. According to Koppeschaar, some names are deemed more suitable than others by the IAU. Modern military and political figures, looking to extend their influence beyond this planet, need not apply, nor do pets. A proposed name has to be accompanied by an extremely brief (four sentence) motivation.

The IAU’s Committee on Small Body Nomenclature can take up to four years before it reaches a decision, and only dicloses the names it has chosen under a full moon.

The committee gets a lot of requests, most of them from the United States, were automated telescopes discover planetoids around the clock. Even so, Koppeschaar has successfully lobbied for the immortalisation of ten people through Gehrels, who has discovered thousands of planetoids working with two astronomers from Leiden.

Unlike Gehrels, Koppeschaar claims he cannot be swayed in his selection of the worthy, though he does admit to conferring with astronomers and scientists on the matter.

The current practice of name selection has led to a somewhat random assortment of Dutchmen being represented in the solar system. A lot of Dutch astronauts and Nobel Prize winners have space rocks named after them, but some of the most respected Dutch writers do not. Perhaps unsurprisingly, astronomers and science journalist figure prominently on the list of minor celstial bodies.

People seeking immortality, but unable to make the Committee on Small Body Nomenclature’s cut have an alternative at their disposal: craters. A lot of pock-marked property on the Moon and Mars still remains to be named. “But the committee charged with that is a lot more strict,” Koppeschaar says. “Besides, you won’t enjoy the naming nearly as much, since you need to be dead ten years to qualify.”