1.4 Satellites of jupiter  (Page 2/2)

In the purely astronomical realm, the satellites of Jupiter posed a new problem for astronomers. It had taken centuries in Antiquity to arrive at adequate geometrical modes for the motions of the known planets. Now there was a new system of planetary bodies in miniature, and astronomers had to develop models that could predict their motions. There was a great incentive to come up with good mathematical models, for the satellites offered some hope for the solution of the problem of longitude at sea . It took almost two centuries, however, before the models and tables based on them reached satisfactory accuracy.

The naming of the satellites provides an interesting example of how such matters were handled before the foundation of the International Astronomical Union in the twentieth century. As their discoverer, Galileo claimed the right to name the satellites. He wanted to name them after his patrons and asked whether they would prefer "Cosmic Stars" (after Cosimo II ) or "Medicean Stars." They opted for the latter, and through much of the seventeenth century they were known by that name. In his notebooks, Galileo referred to them individually by number, starting with the satellite closest to Jupiter, but he never had occasion to refer to them in this way in print.

In Provence, Nicholas Claude Fabri de Peiresc tried to differentiate between the Medicean Stars by assigning them the names of individual members of the family, but this system was not published and thus was never used by others. In his Mundus Iovialis ("Jovian World") of 1614, Simon Marius went into the naming problem in some depth. First, he himself used the numerical system beginning with the satellite closest to Jupiter. Second, he thought that he might call them after his patron, the Duke of Brandenburg -- a suggestion followed by no one. Third, he suggested naming the farthest satellite the Saturn of Jupiter, the next one the Jupiter of Jupiter, the third one the Venus of Jupiter, and the one nearest the planet the Mercury of Jupiter. This cumbersome system never caught on. Finally, Marius related a suggestion by Kepler :

Jupiter is much blamed by the poets on account of his irregular loves. Three maidens are especially mentioned as having been clandestinely courted by Jupiter with success. Io, daughter of the River, Inachus, Callisto of Lycaon, Europa of Agenor. Then there was Ganymede, the handsome son of King Tros, whom Jupiter, having taken the form of an eagle, transported to heaven on his back, as poets fabulously tell . . . . I think, therefore, that I shall not have done amiss if the First is called by me Io, the Second Europa, the Third, on account of its majesty of light, Ganymede, the Fourth Callisto . . . .

This fancy, and the particular names given, were suggested to me by Kepler, Imperial Astronomer, when we met at Ratisbon fair in October 1613. So if, as a jest, and in memory of our friendship then begun, I hail him as joint father of these four stars, again I shall not be doing wrong. [3]

None of these suggestion caught on because with Jupiter's satellites, there was no confusion in the numbering system. Following Galileo and Marius, astronomers simply referred to them by number. With the satellites of Saturn, however, a problem developed. In 1655 Huygens discovered the first and largest; then in 1671-72 Giandomenico Cassini discovered two more, and in 1684 yet another two. These five satellites were numbered like their Galilean counterparts. But when in 1789 William Herschel discovered two additional satellites internal to the first, confusion followed. Did one now renumber them all (thus causing confusion for those who consulted older works), refer to the two new ones as nos. 6 and 7 (thus making the order of the satellites confusing), or refer to them by order of discovery (equally confusing as to order)? Herschel's son, John Frederick William, suggested in 1847 that Saturn's satellites be given individual names of mythological figures associated with Saturn after the suggestion made by Marius for Jupiter's satellites. When, the following year, William Lassel and George Bond independently discovered an eighth satellite of Saturn, they agreed to adopt the naming system proposed by Herschel, in which Saturn's satellites were named after his brothers and sisters, the Titans. This system and the now revived suggestion by Kepler and Marius for Jupiter quickly became the convention for naming the satellites of the superior planets.