The Artist’s Region

Courtesy of Toptechwriter

Us Humans like naming things. We name streets and neighbourhoods and cities and states, countries continents planets… need I go on?
Usually named after humans of influence (or Mythological gods in the case of the planets) For some reason, as Mathew from Soho The Dog points out, we are always naming things after people that were politically and militarily influential.
It turns out though, that there is another trend. The Moon’s geographical features are named after scientists and the artist got Mercury, and women go Venus.

Mercury is a heavily cratered planet, with perhaps the greatest number of craters of any body in the solar system. After much discussion and no little controversy, the Mercury Task Group decided to name these craters for great human contributors to the arts and humanities, including writers, Composers, painters, sculptors, and architects. This system is consistent with previous decisions made for the Moon, Mars, and Venus, on all of which the craters have human names. In terms of commemoration of human achievement, Mercury will be the complement of the Moon, with the latter honoring scientists and scholars and the former honoring the creative and artistic heroes of mankind. Initially, all craters photographed by Mariner 10 and having diameters of 100km or more will be named, as well as selected prominent or geologically significant craters in the 40 to 100km size range.
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A number of scholars are assisting the Task Group in selecting these names. The distribution by fields will be approximately 50% for authors, 30% for artists, and 20% for composers. (David Morrison, “IAU Nomenclature for Topographic Features on Mercury,” Icarus 28, 605-606 (1976))

I am not sure if I like the percentage’s of distribution, but at least the arts are getting some recognition.
It also makes a lot of sense that mercury is the planet for us. In Palmistry the third finger from the thumb is Mercury - and it represents communication and creativity.
Go over to Soho the Dog to read more about this.