After a naming contest, Cardea joins the celestial ranks as a quasi-moon

Cardea was known for thousands of years as the Roman goddess of gates and crossings, guardian of thresholds. On Monday, she joined the heavenly ranks of other mythological figures such as Mars, Venus and Andromeda.

But Cardea is not a planet or a constellation. It is like a quasi-moon – a very real type of asteroid that appears to perform a special orbital dance around Earth.

The International Astronomical Union, the organization of scientists responsible for assigning official names to space objects, chose Cardea through a naming contest that generated more than 2,700 entries. The winning name was submitted by Clayton Chilcutt, 19, a sophomore at the University of Georgia who entered the contest as part of an extra credit assignment in his introductory astronomy class.

“I came across Cardea, and when you read the description, it just sounds heavenly,” said Mr. Chilcutt, an accounting and finance student, adding that his “small contribution to science” is now part of the history books.

But upon further investigation, Mr. Nasser, who holds a Ph.D. in the history of science from Harvard, learned that the blob on the poster labeled as the moon wasn’t technically the moon, but it also wasn’t not the moon, as he describes it.

The planet orbits the star, and the moon orbits the planet. Quasi-moons orbit the sun but are close enough to the planets that they look like tiny moons “doing this double Hula-Hoop dance in space,” Mr. Nasser said.

Mr. Nasser also learned that Zoozve’s real name was not a bunch of consonants, but simply a misinterpretation by the poster’s author: Zoozve was actually 2002-VE. Nevertheless, he convinced the Astronomical Union, which normally approves only mythological names from culture or literature, to name 2002-VE Zoozve.

“It was completely shocking and it felt like a little nudge, a little nudge for the nonsense in the universe,” said Mr. Nasser.

But Zoozve was not alone. In fact, Earth also had a handful of quasi-moons that were eligible for naming (only one had a non-alphanumeric designation, Kamo’oalewa).

“Nobody seemed to care!” said Mr. Nasser. “We care, I care, many would care.”

So in June, Radiolab and the Association of Astronomers teamed up to find a mythological name that fits 2004 GU9, the quasi-moon discovered in 2004 by the LINEAR project in Socorro, NM. The Astronomical Union said one of its closest approaches to Earth will be in October 2026, when it is about 28.5 million miles away.

The competition collected names from more than 100 different countries. Many of the participants wrote moving stories about mythological origin stories, some from their own cultures and others from distant oceans, and what a name like this would mean to the world. The astronomers’ union has eliminated duplicates, names that are already in use and “obviously not mythological names where people haven’t even tried,” Mr. Nasser, like Mooney McMoonface.

“Radiolab” helped assemble an all-star panel of astronomers, journalists, teachers, students, and even a few famous geeks, including Bill Nye, Penn Badgley, and Celia Rose Gooding. The panelists whittled the list down to seven finalists — two of whom came from the same University of Georgia course — and then released the list to the public.

Other finalists included Bakunawa, a mythical dragon from Philippine folklore, said to rise from the ocean to swallow the moon; Ehaema, or “Mother Dusk” in Estonian folklore; and Tecciztecatl, the Aztec lunar god who once aspired to be the sun.

“It’s really bringing people into science who might have said, ‘No, that’s not for me,'” said Kelly Blumenthal, director of astronomy for the international group.

Ms Blumenthal said it “would be a shame” to let the other finalists lapse and that the union’s nominating group would suggest they be used in the future.

For Mr. Nasser, Carde, the winning name, was ultimately appropriate for a quasi-moon: an ancient gatekeeper and protector, a body that will watch over us during times of turmoil and transition.

Mr. Nasser hoped the naming contest helped people feel “this connection to something bigger than all the chaos that’s happening on the ground right now,” he said. “Space is the biggest big picture we have.”