Dartmouth Names on the Moon

Poets, painters, and telescope makers, men and women from many nations and all ages, recently were honored by having their names given to more than 500 prominent craters on the far side of the Moon. The task of selecting and assigning names was completed and the list officially adopted by the International Astronomical Union after three years of careful work by the IAU Working Group on Lunar Nomenclature. Just as man has found it useful to have place names for features on the surface of the earth, so he has found it for the surface of the Moon. Unlike the geographer, however, the modern selenographer has avoided duplication and even similarities in names. He has followed three simple rules (with a few notable exceptions): (1) select outstanding persons now deceased; (2) avoid duplication or similarity in names; and (3) make selections thoroughly international. In addition, he has modified the spelling or omitted names with difficult pronounciations.

Although scientists, especially astronomers, are most frequently honored, we find among the chosen: poets Chaucer, Dante, and Omar Khayyam; writers Willy Ley, Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells; inventors Alexander Graham Bell, Lee DeForest, and Samuel F. B. Morse; medics Harvey, Hippocrates, and Vesalius; even the legendary figures Daedalus, Icarus, and Wan Hoo. Astronauts Aldrin, Armstrong, and Collins also have been honored.

Two Dartmouth graduates are in this company. One, Edwin Brant Frost, Class of 1886, went to Princeton for postgraduate study under Professor C.A. Young, an 1853 graduate and former professor of Dartmouth College (1866-1877); but he returned the following year to become an instructor in physics and astronomy and later Professor of Astronomy. In 1898 he was invited to the staff of the newly built Yerkes Observatory where he became its Director in 1905 and where he acquired international fame for his studies of stellar spectra. In spite of a complete loss of sight by 1921, he continued to carry on an active life for the next eleven years, not only as Director of Yerkes Observatory and beloved teacher but also as editor of the prestigious Astrophysical Journal. The crater which has been named for him is located at longitude 119° West and latitude 37° North. It is somewhat smaller than the well-known crater Copernicus and touches the southern rim of Landau.

The other graduate who has been honored in this manner is Harland True Stetson who received his M.S. degree in 1910 and then served as an instructor in physics at Dartmouth from 1911 to 1913. He studied at Yerkes Observatory and the University of Chicago where he received a Ph.D. in 1915. He taught at Dartmouth, Middlebury, Northwestern, Harvard, Carleton, Knox, and Pomona and he served as Professor of Astronomy and Director of Perkins Observatory at Ohio Wesleyan University. In 1940 he established the Laboratory for Cosmic Terrestrial Research, where he became an authority on sunspots and on "cosmic-terrestrial relations." The crater named for him is also at longitude 119° West but in the southern hemisphere of the Moon at latitude 40° South. It is somewhat elliptical and only half the size of Frost.

Neither Charles Augustus Young, Dartmouth 1853, well-known authority on the sun and its prominences and former Director of Princeton Observatory, nor Walter Sydney Adams, Dartmouth 1898, expert in the measurement and interpretation of radial star velocities and former Director of Mount Wilson Observatory, were chosen because craters on the front side of the moon already had been named for the British physicist Thomas Young and mathematician John Couch Adams. On the other hand, a crater about the size of Frost has been named for A. G. Bell, recipient of an honorary degree from Dartmouth in 1913. It is located at longitude 96° West and latitude 22° North.

Craters Frost and Stetson are near the top and bottom of the section of NASA Lunar Farside Chart (LMP-2) shown here, and Bell is southeast of Frost. The complete map of the moon with additional information about naming the craters may be found in the November 1970 issue of Sky andTelescope.

A segment of the NASA Lunar Farside Chart showing Frost Crater just belowLandau (top center) and Bell Crater in the lower righthand corner.