Crater on Mercury honors slack-key master Gabby Pahinui

A crater on the planet Mercury has been named after the late Hawaiian musician Gabby Pahinui.

The decision was made last week by the International Astronomical Union, a group in charge of planetary and satellite nomenclature, at the recommendation of a former Hawaii resident working on the NASA Messenger spacecraft mission.

"I wanted to honor the place where I grew up and still call home even after many years away," Ray Espiritu, who submitted Pahinui’s name for consideration, said in a statement March 26. "The Pahinui crater contains a possible volcanic vent, and its name may inspire other scientists as they investigate the volcanic processes that helped to create Mercury, just as investigation of Hawaiian volcanoes helps us understand the volcanic processes that shape the Earth we know today."

Pahinui, who died in 1980 at age 59, was a guitar player, singer and composer considered one of the most influential slack-key guitar players in the world. The NASA citation says his music was a key part of the Hawaiian Renaissance, a resurgence of interest in traditional Hawaiian culture during the 1970s.

His famous works include "Hi‘ilawe," his first recording, and "Moonlight Lady."

All the craters on Mercury, the solar system’s smallest and innermost planet, are named for famous, deceased artists, musicians, authors or other contributors to the humanities.

Eight others were named along with Pahinui Crater, including L’Engle Crater, for Madeleine L’Engle, author of "A Wrinkle in Time," and Lovecraft Crater, for American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft.

Since the Messenger spacecraft’s first flyby of Mercury in January 2008, 104 craters there have been named.

Espiritu is a satellite mission operations engineer with Applied Coherent Technology Corp., currently working out of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University.