Libra discovery

Minor planets discovered in Libra.

Screenshot of an interactive 3D model of Haumea by NASA.
Dwarf planets, Focus On, Libra discovery, Trans-Neptunian objects

Focus On: (136108) Haumea

Name origin: Hawai’ian goddess of fertility and childbirth. Mother of many important deities (including Pele, Hi’iaka and Namaka) and herself among the first worshipped on the Hawai’ian islands. She repeatedly transforms herself from an old woman to a young girl, and returns to her homeland periodically to give birth to further generations of humans.

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Detail of the Judges of the Dead, Rhadamanthys, Minos and Aeakos, from the name vase of the Underworld Painter, ca. 330-310 BCE.
Focus On, Kuiper Belt objects, Libra discovery, Trans-Neptunian objects

Focus On: (38083) Rhadamanthus

Name origin: Greek son of Zeus and Europa. Because of his just and upright life, after death Rhadamanthus was appointed a judge of the dead and the ruler of Elysium, a blissfully beautiful area of the Underworld where those favoured by the gods spent their life after death.

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Statue of the personification of Wisdom (Koinē Greek: Σοφία, Sophía) at the Library of Celsus in Ephesus (second century CE); crop.
Asteroids, Focus On, Libra discovery, Main belt objects

Focus On: (275) Sapientia

Sapientia is Latin for “wisdom”. The corresponding Ancient Greek term (Sophia) variously translates to “clever, skillful, intelligent, wise”; it also implies “skill in handicraft and art” in Homeric usage, which has been applied to both Hephaistos and Athene.

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