Astronomers call for the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds to be renamed amid claims their namesake has a ‘violent colonialist legacy’
Astronomers say the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds should be retitled because of their namesake’s “violent colonialist legacy.”
The dwarf galaxies, visible to the naked eye from the Southern Hemisphere, have been known for more than 1,000 years after being spotted by indigenous peoples in South America, Australia and Africa.
But they are named after the 16th-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who claimed to have discovered them with his crew during his first circumnavigation of the world between 1519 and 1522.
However, this is not well received by a group of astronomers in the US.
Mia de los Reyes, an assistant professor of astronomy at Amherst College, Massachusetts, labeled Magellan “a colonizer, a slaver and a murderer.”
Defiled? Astronomers say the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds should be retitled due to their namesake’s ‘violent colonialist legacy’
She added that he ‘not an astronomer,” nor was he the first to discover the galaxies, because indigenous peoples “had names and legends for these systems that predated Magellan by thousands of years.”
Professor de los Reyes said she and “a coalition of astronomers” were calling on the scientific community to rename the clouds, “as well as other astronomical objects, institutions and facilities that bear his name.”
A lunar crater, a crater on Mars, NASA’s Magellan spacecraft, the twin Magellan telescopes in Chile and the next-generation telescope currently under construction – called the Giant Magellan Telescope – are all named after the Portuguese explorer.
“I and many other astronomers believe that astronomical objects and facilities should not be named after Magellan, or anyone else with a violent colonialist legacy,” Professor de los Reyes wrote in the paper Journal of the American Physical Society.
She said the explorer murdered, enslaved and burned the homes of indigenous people during his circumnavigation, while also placing iron handcuffs on the “youngest and best-proportioned men” in what is now Argentina.
About the Magellanic Clouds, Professor de los Reyes added that “the beauty of these stellar objects is obscured by their names.”
She suggested changing the “m” in Magellan’s LMC and SMC to something like “meridional,” meaning “of or relating to the Southern Hemisphere.”
Another alternative, the professor added, would be to use “Milky” because of the clouds’ association with the Milky Way.
But not everyone agrees that the names of the dwarf galaxies should be changed.
A number of X users criticized the plea, calling it “#woke astronomy.”
Namesake: They are named after the 16th century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who claimed to have discovered them with his crew during his first circumnavigation of the world between 1519 and 1522
The Large Magellanic Cloud (pictured) is 160,000 light-years away, while the Small Magellanic Cloud is about 200,000 light-years away
Bob Blackman, the Conservative MP for Harrow East, also said it was ‘absolute nonsense’ to call for a name change for the galaxies.
“We can all look back on the involvement of different people in the slave trade, but the reality is that if you start renaming everything that everyone was involved in, you’re not left with much.” he told the Telegraph.
The Large Magellanic Cloud is 160,000 light-years away from us, while the Small Magellanic Cloud is about 200,000 light-years away.
They orbit the Milky Way once every 1,500 million years and each other once every 900 million years.
The very first recorded mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud was by the Persian astronomer Shirazi, in his Book of Fixed Stars around 964 AD.