Planetary Rock Star: John Lennon Gets Crater Named After Him on Mercury

Elton John might be the Rocket Man, but it's John Lennon who's getting an out-of-this world honor. The Beatles rock star has had a crater named after him on Mercury.

The Lennon crater is one of 10 newly named craters on the planet closest to the Sun, joining the ranks of more than 100 other named craters on Mercury since NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft first passed by the tiny planet in 2008.

Sean Solomon, the principle investigator of the MESSENGER mission, suggested a crater be named after Lennon, who who was murdered on the streets of New York in 1980.

The Lennon crater, along the nine others, was officially named by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the same organization responsible for naming planets, moons, stars and other celestial bodies.

Like all of Mercury's named craters, the newly designated craters are named after "deceased artists, musicians, painters, and authors who have made outstanding or fundamental contributions to their field and have been recognized as art historically significant figures for more than 50 years," according to the IAU.

"We are particularly pleased that eight of the 10 individuals honored made all or many of their artistic contributions in the Twentieth Century, the same century in which the MESSENGER mission was conceived, proposed, and approved for flight. Imagine," Solomon said.

While craters and other astronomical objects are typically given official names that consist of esoteric sequences of numbers and letters, naming them so is as tedious for professionals as it is for the public, said David Blewett, a MESSENGER participating scientist.

"After a while, identifying craters by their latitude and longitude becomes laborious. Assigning names to the craters makes it easier for scientists to communicate about them, share notes and observations," Blewett said.

Interestingly, this is not first celestial crater named after Lennon. Designated on Oct. 9, 2009, The John Lennon Peace Crater is located in on the Moon's Lacus Somniorum ("Lake of Dreams") district.

In addition to Lennon, the newly named craters are:

• Barney, for Natalie Clifford Barney (1876-1972), an American-French playwright, poet, and novelist.
• Berlioz, for Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), a French Romantic composer best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts.
• Calder, for Alexander Calder (1898-1976), an American sculptor best known as the originator of the mobile, a type of kinetic sculpture made with delicately balanced or suspended components that move in response to motor power or air currents.
• Capote, for Truman Capote (1924-1984), an American author whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction include the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true-crime novel In Cold Blood.
• Caruso, for Enrico Caruso (1873-1921), an Italian tenor who sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas and appeared in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic.
• Ensor, for James Sidney Ensor (1860-1949), a Belgian painter and printmaker, considered an important influence on expressionism and surrealism.
• Giambologna, for Jean Boulogne Giambologna (1529-1608), a Dutch sculptor known for his marble and bronze statuary in a late Renaissance or Mannerist style.
• Remarque, for Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970), a German author best known for his novel All Quiet on the Western Front, which depicted the horrors of war from the viewpoint of young German soldiers.
• Vieira da Silva, for Maria Elena Vieira da Silva (1908-1992), a Portuguese-born French painter of intricate, semiabstract compositions.