Planetary Name Game

By Cecilia Stoner, INSPIRE 11^th Grade

Have you ever sat listing the planets on a rainy day – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune (and Pluto! that is, if you’re still stuck in the past) and realized that all of these names are tied together by the common bond of mythology?

Mercury was the messenger god in Roman mythology, said to be the swiftest and most reliable. It is also the planet with the quickest orbit around the sun. Coincidence?

Venus, named the goddess of love and such, merits her name for her allure in the evening and morning skies, brightly shining and welcoming the day or issuing in the enveloping night.

Mars was the god of war and most irate of the Olympians. The ancients viewed this planet of red, this warring sphere, as one that issued in a great fight.

Jupiter is the king of the gods and the largest planet. If you have ever chanced to listen to Gustav Holst’s symphony, The Planets, you will note the degree of majesty given to Jupiter, force yet calmness.

Saturn, a god perhaps better known from Greek mythology as Cronos, was the father of many gods in mythology including Jupiter and Neptune. In an ancient revolt Jupiter actually overthrew his father and became the supreme god. Likewise, Jupiter the planet is larger in size than the nearby Saturn.

Uranus varies in the usual naming sequence by coming directly from Greek mythology. Commonly known as the sky god, Uranus was husband to Gaia, or the Mother Earth, and from this pair came life as we know it.

Neptune, rightly named for the god of the sea, possesses a calming but eerie blue light of the oceans. This calm is broken by a great storm – the planet’s eye.

Pluto, the god of the underworld, deserves its name. A freezing, barren place, Pluto reflects the mystery associated with Hades.

If you want to delve in further to NASA’s name game, you can note that the prominent moons of Jupiter are named after the god’s many lovers and that the moons of Mars – Phobos and Deimos – are rightly the weapons of a god of war, fear and dread. The ingenuity of skywatchers past and present in linking the planets with classical mythology shows the greatness of both our classical myth and our universe.