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Naming the New Planet is a problem. When Herschel discovered Uranus he called it Georgium Siditis after King George III of England. Others suggested Herschel. Both names raised an academic row. The quarrel was resolved by choosing Uranus, the Greek personification of the Heavens, husband of Gaea (Earth), father of the Cyclops, Titans and Furies.
Neptune, god of the sea, was chosen after Dominique Francois Arago (1786-1853), a leading French astronomer of his time had tried to get it called Leverrier, after Urbain Jean Joseph Leverrier, who calculated its existence.
For the New Planet, Percival Lowell s wife, who still lives in Beacon Street. Boston, last week suggested Percival. She rejected Lowell as being fixed to too many notable institutions—the Lowell Observatory, the Lowell Institute, the City of Lowell, etc. etc. Harlow Shapley, director of the Harvard Observatory, suggested Cronos, son of Uranus and father ot Zeus Astrologers recommended variously I sis, Vulcan, Lilith.* Choice lies with the Lowell Observatory men.
Choosing an astronomical symbol for the New Planet is also a problem. Signs of the anciently known planets are conventionalized pictures. Mercury's represents the Caduceus, or head with winged cap; Venus' a looking glass; the Earths its equator and a meridian; Mars', a shield and spear, or a warrior's head with helmet and plume; Jupiter's an eagle; Saturn's a scythe or sickle; Uranus' H for Herschel. with a planet suspended from the crossbar; Neptune's the trident. The first recommended sign for Neptune was a crossbarred L with a planet suspended for Leverrier. That sign might stand for the new planet as a recognition of Percival Lowell. Or Harvard's shield might be chosen.
The immensity of the solar system can be grasped by considering Augusta, Me., as the sun and Sacramento. Calif., 2,663 air miles away, as the New Planet. Earth would then circle through Portland, Me., Mercury through Wiscasset, Me Venus through Rockland, Me., Mars through Bar Harbor, Me., Jupiter through Bridgeport, Conn., Saturn through Annapolis, Md.; Uranus through Nashville, Tenn., Neptune through Oklahoma City.
Between Mars and Jupiter is a great swarm of their little brothers, the planetoids. About 1,000 planetoids have been seen 'with telescopes, although some, are less than 25 miles in diameter. All these planets and planetoids are children of the Sun.
According to the most generally accepted theory, aeons ago a star passed near the Sun and sucked great swirls of Sun matter into space. The Sun's force of gravity kept several great puffs and many a little one from diffusing into interstellar space, but was not strong enough to draw them back. They developed their own gravities and took to twirling in nearly circular orbits around the Sun.*They all turn around the Sun in the same direction; and they all, except Uranus and Neptune, and possibly the New Planet, turn on their own polar axis in the same direction. †Uranus .and Neptune are retrograde. The map shows their approximately relative position as of March 24, as might be seen by an observer on the star nearest to the celestially pretty Solar System, North Star, about 240 million miles away.