UPDATE: NASA extended the nicknaming campaign for New Horizons spacecraft's next flyby object until Dec. 6 at midnight. Read on below and learn how to vote on a better name for the Kuiper Belt object.
NASA’s Pluto exploring spacecraft will encounter another Kuiper Belt object on New Year’s Day 2019, and mission managers want to call it something a little sexier than what it's called now: 2014 MU69.
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The space agency is asking all earthlings to help come up with a new nickname for the ancient Kuiper Belt object before the New Horizons spacecraft makes its flyby.
New Horizons made its historic flyby past Pluto two years ago, and ever since it has been zooming on towards a tiny, icy world inside the belt of fossil-like asteroids that wrap around our solar system, also known as 2014 MU69. The name doesn't really roll off the tongue, even for experienced scientists.
MU69 is 4 billion miles from Earth and may actually be two objects, either stuck together or orbiting one another. New Horizons is still too far away to tell. If so, two nicknames would be needed. The nicknames will be temporary; a formal name will come after the flyby, according to NASA.
The SETI Institute in California is hosting the nicknaming campaign.
“We would like to use a more memorable nickname when we talk about our target body,” New Horizons science team member Mark Showalter, of the SETI Institute, said in a blog post.
The team already has a few possible nicknames picked out, including Año Nuevo (which is Spanish for New Year), Pluck and Persistence, Peanut, Almond and Cashew. People can vote on those possible nicknames or they can submit new nickname ideas to be added to the ballot.
People can read more about the names and the meaning behind them here, and vote or submit new suggestions at frontierworlds.org/vote.
The deadline for submissions and votes is Dec. 1 at 3 p.m. EST. The spacecraft’s team will review the finalists and announce the chosen nickname at the beginning of next year.