以下即小编为大家分享的英文阅读素材：给小行星们命名
CONTENT：
WHAT'S in a name? A chance of cosmic immortality, if you get it right. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is asking "public and astronomy-interested organisations" to officially name 305 planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy.
While pondering ideas, history offers us a few lessons. Flash back to 1781: musician and amateur astronomer William Herschel was peering through a telescope in his garden in Bath, UK, when he spotted a curious object "either nebulous star, or perhaps a comet". It turned out Herschel's discovery was rather more significant – it was a new planet.
But what to call it? Herschel named it after the ruling King George III, one of the few British monarchs to have a deep interest in science. But he was swiftly overruled by the astronomical community. Planets had been traditionally named after mythological deities. Imagine: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, George, Neptune... it doesn't bear thinking about. Uranus – in mythology the father of Saturn – won. Sorry, George.
参考译文：
一个名字里有着怎样的故事?如果你做的好，说不定能让这个名字永世流芳。国际天文学联合会(IAU)呼吁“公众们和各天文学兴趣小组”参与到为在我们的星系里绕其他恒星运行的305颗行星命名的官方活动中来。
在提出这个想法时，历史上的一些事件值得我们参考。时光倒转回1781年：威廉·赫谢尔这位音乐家及天文学家通过望远镜在英国巴斯自家的花园里观察到了一件奇怪的物体“又像星云状星群，也可能是一颗彗星”。事实证明，赫谢尔的发现是多么重要——那是一颗新的星球。
如何给它命名呢?赫谢尔将其命名为国王乔治三世，这是英国少有的一位对科学有着浓厚兴趣的君主。但他的命名很快被天文学界否定了。传统的命名方式都是根据古希腊神话中众神的名字来命名的。例如：水星(墨丘利)，金星(维纳斯)，地球(盖亚)，火星(战神)，木星(朱庇特)，土星(农业之神)，海王星(海神)等等，这完全就是顺理成章的事情。天王星(天神)——神话中是农业之神的父亲，所以乔治这个名字被否定了。