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Williamson Jr., age 10, of Smyrna, Georgia, for his question:

How did the planets get their names?

The names of Mars, Saturn and Jupiter seem out of place in our modern space age. They belonged to gods of the ancient world. People began to lose faith in these glorified characters around 2,000 years ago. But their admirers of long ago gave their names to the planets. And the planets continued to wander around the heavens. Their olden names sounded just fine and nobody thought of changing them. What's more, when more planets were discovered, they too were named for gods of the ancient past.

Sometimes we tend to think that the heavenly bodies were discovered by our space age generation. But our earliest ancestors were star gazers and the science of astronomy dates back more than 6,000 years. In ancient Mesopotamia, generations of wise men patiently charted the paths of the heavenly bodies. So did early Chinese, Hindu and Egyptian astronomers. These patient people noticed that the paths of the five visible planets wander against the background of fixed stars.

Our word "planet" is borrowed from an older word that meant wanderer. We also kept the names that olden astronomers had given to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. When the Roman legions conquered much of the known world 2,000 years ago, they introduced the names of these planets throughout most of Europe and the Middle East. The Greeks named the planets for four of their gods and a goddess. The Romans borrowed the older Greek gods and goddess, renamed them and used these names for the planets.

Mercury, with wings on his feet, was the messenger of the gods. Venus was the goddess of love and Mars was the god of war. Jupiter was king of the gods and Saturn was a former king. The old king lost his throne and came to stand for the season of growing crops. The Romans built temples in tribute to these deities and named the five visible planets to honor them. With the help of telescopes, three more planets were discovered in modern times. It seemed only right and proper to name them for three more gods of the ancient world.

Shorthand symbols for the planets are found in older records dating back many thousands of years. The symbol for Mercury is a wand of twined snakes, like the modern caduceus symbol for medical science. The symbol for gorgeous Venus, naturally, is a hand mirror. Mars, the war planet, has a shield and spear. For giant Jupiter, the shorthand sign may be a zig zag thunderbolt or the letter Z from his Greek name, which was Zeus. The sign for slow moving Saturn seems to be a curved tool; it may be the scythe of Father Time or a sickle to shear the harvest fields.

These five names and symbols survived from the ancient world to modern times. Then another planet was found beyond Jupiter. Several names were suggested. But it was decided to keep things in the family, so to speak. It was named Uranus, for an ancient god of the sky. Two more outer planets were discovered. Neptune was named for an olden sea god and his symbol is the sea god's three pronged trident. Little Pluto, way out there at the cold dark edge of the solar system, was named for an ancient god of the underworld. His symbol looks like the initial P with a slightly upturned toe.

 

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