Kekaomakali‘i, the Canoe Bailer, is now filling the western region of the sky. In this starline we can make out the recognizable stars that make up Kaheiheionakeiki, also well known as Orion the Hunter.
South of Orion, ‘A‘a is the brightest star that we can see in the nighttime sky. To the north and west of Orion, Mars and the star cluster of Makali‘i will be preparing to set into Manu Ho‘olua.
Looking toward the Ko‘olau quadrant in the northeast, in compass house Nalani, we see the constellation Nahiku, or Ursa Major.
In the eastern sky is Hokupa, or Leo, having risen in the compass house La Ko‘olau.
Celestial naming
A Hua He Inoa, or “to call forth a name,” is a Hawaiian-naming program for celestial objects discovered by Hawaii’s telescopes. The team is composed of University of Hawaii-Hilo language educators, cultural experts, astronomers and invited university and high school students.
The idea for the project came from Kona businessman John De Fries.
“We could elevate the nature of astronomers’ work on the mountain to a level that would embrace the origins that Hawaiians understood themselves to come from,” he suggested.
In a 2017 memo to the Kahu Ku Mauna advisory council and to the Office of Maunakea Management, De Fries requested that future observatory leases require the use of Hawaiian language when naming new discoveries.
Ka‘iu Kimura, executive director of the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center, was the keynote speaker at the recent American Astronomical Society conference in Seattle, where she shared the story of the A Hua He Inoa project. Her presentation drew overwhelming interest from media across the nation and requests from astronomers to name objects discovered through their work.
There now exists a long list of objects for future naming events.
Ten high school students from Maui and Hawaii island teamed up with UH-Hilo Ka Haka ‘Ula o Ke‘elikolani College of Hawaiian Language students to name two asteroids that were discovered by using the Pan-STARRS telescope on Maui.
Asteroid 2015 BZ509, Ka‘epaoka‘alewa, “mischievous opposite-moving companion of Jupiter,” is one of the objects named by the students. The planets and major moons of our solar system orbit the sun in a prograde motion (counterclockwise). About 750,000 asteroids orbit in prograde motion.
Ka‘epaoka‘alewa is one of those orbiting the sun clockwise, backward, in retrograde motion. This nearly 2-mile-wide asteroid has an orbit that is similar to Jupiter’s.
Because it orbits the sun backward, it passes Jupiter twice — once on the “upwind” side and once on the “downwind” side. On every pass of Jupiter, it alternates positions, on the “sunny side” of Jupiter on one pass and on the “dark side” of Jupiter on the second pass.
The retrograde motion of this asteroid led some astronomers to think that it may have originated outside of our solar system. This interstellar visitor, similar to ‘Oumuamua, was stuck in orbit around the sun.
The second asteroid, 2016 HO3, Kamo‘oalewa, “oscillating Earth companion,” is a 44- to-110-yard-wide asteroid. It orbits the sun but is always close to Earth, and from our perspective it seems to go around us. Hence, it has been described by astronomers as a “quasi-moon.”
Kamo‘oalewa orbits the sun every 365.93 days, just 16 hours longer than Earth’s 365.24 days of orbit around the sun.
These two asteroids are not the first to receive Hawaiian names. In 2017 Larry Kimura, a Hawaiian-language professor at UH Hilo, named ‘Oumuamua, “scout,” for an old interstellar comet that entered and exited our solar system in a short time frame.
Other objects named by researchers include a galaxy supercluster, Laniakea (“immeasurable heaven”), and a dwarf planet, Haumea, a Hawaiian goddess. In the oceanic tradition we continue to name new celestial discoveries for objects that led us on pathways to the safety of new shores.
Morning observations
Venus and Jupiter will rise out of Manu Malanai and be easily visible just before 7 a.m. Sandwiched between Venus and Jupiter will be the planet Saturn. Saturn will be significantly fainter than Venus and Jupiter but will still stand out in the sky.
Next to these planets will be the famous shape of Maui’s fishhook, Kamakaunuiomaui, easily found by first finding the distinctively bright red star of Lehuakona (also known as Antares).
March Skywatch on Scribd
Chad Kalepa Baybayan (Kalepa.Baybayan@hawaii.edu) serves as navigator-in-residence and Emily Peavy (Emily.Peavy@hawaii.edu) as planetarium technician support facilitator at the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawai‘i, a center for informal science education at the University of Hawaii at Hilo showcasing astronomy and Hawaiian culture as parallel journeys of human exploration.
