I mean, yeah, many celestial bodies take their names from Latin. Like how the proper name of the sun is Sol, which matches solar, the lunar object would be called Luna. Selene feels like a retronym to match other Greek deities, and would be like renaming Earth to Gaia
either of those options is a fair pick given their oldness
Luna would definitely rank over Selene in the Western astronomical tradition. As you say, its name is just The Moon, which is what Luna means in many current day Latin derived languages
I’d be totally up with renaming out Tierra and Luna to something that is not eurocentric. Would be a nice change of pace against how much of immediate astronomy is caught up in remixes of Greek and Latin.
Luna is Latin for the moon
Selene is Greek for the goddess and personification of the moon
“The Moon” is it’s actual name these days but either of those options is a fair pick given their oldness
I mean, yeah, many celestial bodies take their names from Latin. Like how the proper name of the sun is Sol, which matches solar, the lunar object would be called Luna. Selene feels like a retronym to match other Greek deities, and would be like renaming Earth to Gaia
Luna would definitely rank over Selene in the Western astronomical tradition. As you say, its name is just The Moon, which is what Luna means in many current day Latin derived languages
hell yeah, I’d be on board with that
Sure, but at that point we could rename it anything.
I’d be totally up with renaming out Tierra and Luna to something that is not eurocentric. Would be a nice change of pace against how much of immediate astronomy is caught up in remixes of Greek and Latin.
It’s only Eurocentric in the Western tradition, and even then the names of many stars come from Arabic.