How did the planets of the solar system get their names? Origin of planet names

I thought for a long time about where to start our wonderful journey through the pages of the history of the most ancient science - astronomy. And I decided: first of all, I will tell you when and how people gave the heavenly bodies the names that are familiar to us today.

Since time immemorial, the sky has attracted people's attention. The Sun, giving life to people, animals and plants, the mysterious and constantly changing appearance of the Moon, strange movements among the stars of the “wandering luminaries” - planets, the appearance terrifying“tailed stars” - comets and, finally, the majestic and mysterious beauty of the starry sky - all this aroused in our distant ancestors curiosity and delight, fear and desire to know the unknown, as well as the desire to connect what is happening in the sky with what is happening in everyday life.

People were encouraged to engage in the science of the Universe for various reasons. Perhaps the most important of them were three. Firstly, observations of celestial bodies helped people solve a number of important practical problems, for example, determining the most favorable dates for sowing and harvesting, navigating by the Sun and stars, etc. Secondly, people have long wanted to know what the celestial luminary and what place we occupy in the Universe. Thirdly, astrologers could not do without astronomical observations, claiming that the heavenly bodies (“star deities”) govern all earthly affairs. For thousands of years, astronomy and astrology have been very closely related. This is evidenced, in particular, by data obtained by archaeologists. On stone and clay tablets that have come down to us from the ancient Sumerians (they lived in Mesopotamia in the 5th-3rd millennium BC), texts with astronomical and astrological content were discovered. And in later times, many great astronomers studied astrology. For example, Claudius Ptolemy (100-165) is still considered by astrologers to be one of the founders of “scientific astrology,” although modern astronomers treat astrology not as a science, but as a “stellar religion.”

However, both astronomers and astrologers needed to first of all come up with names for at least the most important celestial bodies. Many people today are very interested in the question of who gave them names and when. There is even an anecdote among astronomers about how, after one of the lectures about the Universe, one of the listeners admitted to the lecturer: “You spoke very interestingly about the Moon and planets, the Sun and stars, galaxies and the Universe, but I still didn’t understand how scientists I managed to find out the names of the planets and stars..." In the fairy tales I invented for children ("Star Tales", "The Fabulous Adventures of a Little Astronomer", etc.), the luminaries, getting acquainted with the children - the heroes of these fairy tales, simply tell them their names, similarly , as is customary among people. But in fact, everything was not so simple, and you will now learn something about it.

It is clear to everyone that the problem of naming the luminary arose only after people learned about this luminary. For example, neither Copernicus, nor Kepler, nor Newton knew anything about planets located further from the Sun than Saturn. Therefore, at that time there was no need to name these planets. Another thing is the luminaries known to people since ancient times and called planets, which then included the Sun, Moon, as well as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn visible to the naked eye. They were the “planetary gods” through whom, according to astrologers, our lives are controlled by the “God of the Cosmos”.

The most important “planetary god” was, of course, considered Sun, the name of which is in the languages of all peoples of the world. The Slavic word "Sun" comes from Indo-European, meaning "to shine." The suffixes -n- and -ts- give this word a barely noticeable endearing meaning(compare: “window” - “window”), although, when affectionately addressing the luminary of the day, we usually say “Sun”. According to philologists, the mentioned suffixes emphasized the special respect of the ancient Slavs for the Sun, their desire to appease mighty god daytime sky. Sun worship, or the cult of the Sun, existed among many peoples. The daylight gave names to such gods as Helios (Ancient Greece), Ra ( Ancient Egypt), etc.

To the most ancient famous people luminaries include, of course, Moon- the brightest luminary in the night sky. The meaning of its name is “luminous”, “brilliant”. True, unlike the Sun, the night beauty has two names - “Moon” and “Moon”. The second name, as you know, is associated with a change in the appearance of the Moon ( lunar phases), occurring throughout the month. The root of the word “month” is related to the words “measure”, “to measure”, and time was measured with the help of the Moon, because the month became one twelfth of the year. The suffix -yats- is also, perhaps, not in vain added to the root -mes- (again, in order to somehow win over, to appease the night star).

In astronomy natural satellite The Earth has only one name - the Moon. In honor of the Moon, the ancient Greeks named one of their goddesses Selene.

Ancient Rome gave us the names of such planets as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. Before the Romans, other peoples gave names to these planets, for example the ancient Greeks, and before them the Babylonians. The names of the planets were not only “divine” (that is, given in honor of the gods), but also semantic: Mercury - “sparkling”, Venus - “bringer of the morning” (astronomers Ancient Greece established that the bright evening and morning “star” are the same luminary), Mars is “fiery”, Jupiter is “radiant”, Saturn is “shining”.

What gods are the planets named after? Among the ancient Romans Mercury(from the word “goods”, “trade”) was the god of trade, among the Greeks it was Hermes - the messenger of the gods, one of the most powerful sons of Zeus himself. To this day, he is depicted wearing a wide-brimmed traveler's hat, magical winged sandals that allow him to move very quickly, and with a magical golden rod that gives him extraordinary power over the souls of people. The rod of Hermes (caduceus) is made in the form of a cross, which is entwined with two snakes (a symbol of time gathered into eternity). The vertical of the cross seems to connect “heaven” and “underworld,” and the horizontal is “an image of the earthly path running between two cosmic poles.” Gradually, from the mythological image of Hermes, an ancient religious and philosophical doctrine (Hermeticism) grew, which contains hidden secrets nature and man, supposedly sent to us by the Universal Mind that created the world...

Venus- Roman goddess of gardens (in Greek mythology this is Aphrodite - the goddess of love and beauty, one of the daughters of Zeus). Remember that after the Sun and Moon, the most attractive luminary in the sky is Venus.

Red planet - Mars- bears the name of the Roman god of war (Greek god of war - Ares).

Not knowing that Jupiter- the most big planet Solar system, the ancients successfully named it in honor of their most important god. For the Romans, Jupiter is the god of the sky, the king of the gods (for the Greeks, Zeus is the god of gods).

So, the oldest "planets" seven. The seven were especially revered. After all, there are not only seven planets, but also seven bucket stars Ursa Major- the main constellation of our sky, seven colors of the rainbow (spectrum), seven ancient “wonders of the world”, seven notes in music, each phase of the Moon lasts seven days, seven days of the week, the number of many fairy-tale characters and sayings (“Seven Brothers”, “U seven nannies, a child without an eye”, “Seven troubles - one answer”, “One with a bipod - seven with a spoon”), etc.

Astrologers compared each of the planets not only with deities and certain days of the week, but also with animals, birds, metals, precious stones, color, professions, vices and virtues, smells, taste, etc. And, of course, from relative position"planets" and zodiac constellations (more precisely, zodiac signs), in which they were at one time or another, depend, according to astrologers, the fate of the person born, and the outcome of the war, and the fate the whole country... It’s only a pity that it’s difficult to read anywhere or find out what the distant and close solid and gaseous planetary balls have to do with all this...

In fact, the ancients knew not seven, but only five planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn). The other four planets ( Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and even Earth) opened much later. You will soon find out how and when this happened.

And now I would like to talk about the symbols of the main bodies of the Solar System. Surely the most ancient (but understandable to each of us) are the signs of the Sun and Moon. They don't need any explanation. The remaining signs began to be used around the 9th century. They are interpreted differently. For example, it is believed that the sign of Mercury represents the rod of this god. And the sign of Venus looks like a hand mirror in which the beauty admires her reflection. The Earth has the same “mirror” for some reason turned 180°. The sign of Mars resembles a spear obscured by a shield. Greek name, corresponding to the Roman "Jupiter", is Zeus, and the letter Z is similar to the sign of Jupiter. Since Saturn (Kronos) symbolizes time, then, as the famous French popularizer of astronomy K. Flammarion wrote, the sign of this planet can be perceived as an image of the “braid of time.” The first letter of the surname of Herschel, who discovered Uranus, can probably be recalled by the sign of this planet (a circle with the letter H). There is no doubt that the trident of the god of the seas is the sign of Neptune, and the first (Latin) letters of the name and surname of Percival Lovell, the famous astronomer, are the sign of Pluto.

The solar system includes the central star and all the natural space objects orbiting it. It was formed by gravitational compression of a gas and dust cloud approximately 4.57 billion years ago. The Solar System includes 8* planets, half of which belong to the terrestrial group: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. They are also called inner planets in contrast to the outer ones - the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, located outside the ring of minor planets.

1. Mercury
The planet closest to the Sun in the solar system is named after ancient roman god trade - fleet-footed Mercury, as it moves along celestial sphere faster than other planets.

2. Venus
The second planet of the solar system was named in honor of the ancient Roman goddess of love Venus. It is the brightest object in the earth's sky after the Sun and Moon and the only planet in the solar system named after a female deity.

3. Earth
The third planet from the Sun and the fifth largest among all the planets in the solar system has had its current name since 1400, but who exactly named it that is unknown. The English word Earth comes from an 8th century Anglo-Saxon word meaning earth or ground. This is the only planet in the solar system with a name that is not related to Roman mythology.

4. Mars
The seventh largest planet in the solar system has a reddish tint to its surface due to iron oxide. With such a “bloody” association, the object was named in honor of the ancient Roman god of war, Mars.

5. Jupiter
The largest planet in the solar system is named after the ancient Roman supreme god-thunderer. 6. Saturn Saturn is the slowest planet in the solar system, which is symbolically reflected in its first name: it was given in honor of the ancient Greek god of time, Kronos. In Roman mythology, the god of agriculture Saturn turned out to be the analogue of Kronos, and as a result, this name was assigned to the planet.

7. Uranus
The third largest planet in diameter and fourth largest planet in the solar system was discovered in 1781 by the English astronomer William Herschel. The tradition of naming planets was continued, and the international community named a new one celestial body in honor of the father of Kronos - the Greek god of the sky Uranus.

8. Neptune
Discovered on September 23, 1846, Neptune became the first planet discovered through mathematical calculations rather than through regular observations. The large blue giant (this color is due to the hue of the atmosphere) is named after the Roman god of the seas.

Pluto in 2006 lost its status as a solar system planet and was classified as dwarf planet and the largest object in the Kuiper Belt. It has been the ninth planet of the solar system since its discovery in 1930. The name "Pluto" was first suggested by an eleven-year-old schoolgirl from Oxford, Venetia Bernie. She was interested not only in astronomy, but also in classical mythology, and decided that this name - an ancient Roman version of the name of the Greek god of the underworld - was best suited for a dark, distant and cold world. By voting, astronomers chose this option.

Look at the model of the solar system created in the American desert.

*Recently scientists. Since it does not yet have a full name, and research is still ongoing, we did not include it in the above list.

The names of the planets of the solar system came to us from Roman and Greek mythology. With the exception of Earth, all the planets in the solar system are named after ancient gods.

Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, began to be observed in the 14th century BC. Various cultures in different periods Over time, various names were given to this planet. The planet was originally known as Ninuri, but later became known as Nabu. In Ancient Greece different times the planet was named Stilbon, Hermaon and Apollo. The name by which we know the planet today comes from the Romans, and is due to the fact that Mercury moves faster than other planets across the sky. Mercury is the fleet-footed Roman god of trade.

Venus, being the brightest planet in the sky, got its name in honor of the Roman goddess of love and beauty. For your information, this is the only planet in the solar system that was named after a female deity.

Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, is named after the ancient Roman god of war. However, not everyone knows that Mars was originally the god of fertility, and only later began to be personified with the Greek god of war, Ares.

Saturn, the second largest planet in the solar system, received its name in honor of the god of agriculture, highly revered among the Romans. According to legend, this god taught people to build houses, grow plants and cultivate the land.

Jupiter, like other planets, had many names in different cultures: “Mulu-babbar” in Mesopotamian culture, “Sui-Sin” in Chinese, “Star of Zeus” in Greek. The largest planet in the solar system received its final name in honor of the supreme god Jupiter, the god of sky and light.

Uranus was discovered in 1781 by the English astronomer William Herschel and named after the Greek god of the sky Uranus, the father of Kronos (in Roman mythology, Saturn) and, accordingly, the grandfather of Zeus (for the Romans - Jupiter).

Neptune, discovered on September 23, 1846, became the first planet discovered through mathematical calculations rather than through regular observations. Named after the Roman god of the seas.

Pluto is the largest dwarf planet in the Solar System along with Eris. From the day of its discovery in 1930 until 2006, Pluto was considered the ninth planet of the solar system. The name "Pluto" was first suggested by Venetia Burney, an eleven-year-old schoolgirl from Oxford. Venice was interested not only in astronomy, but also in classical mythology, and decided that this name - an ancient Roman version of the name of the Greek god of the underworld - was suitable for such a probably dark and cold world. She suggested the name in a conversation with her grandfather Falconer Meydan, who worked in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University - Meydan had read about the discovery of the planet in The Times and told his granddaughter about it over breakfast. He conveyed her proposal to Professor Herbert Turner, who telegraphed it to his colleagues in the USA.

A couple of times I came across stores named “Mercury” and “Neptune”, as well as the “Mars” cinema. There are planets with similar names in our solar system. Using information from viewed popular science TV shows and Wikipedia, let’s look at which characters astronomical objects are named after, as well as shopping and entertainment establishments.

Origin of the names of the terrestrial planets

These planets are so called because they are made of solid matter rather than gases. Let's make a list of them in order of distance from the Sun.

Mercury. This small planet has a thin atmosphere and sudden temperature changes. It is named after the ancient Roman god of trade Mercury for its rapid rotation and resourcefulness. In 3 months, Mercury manages to complete a full revolution around the Sun.
Venus. In the pre-dawn haze you can see this beautiful, glowing
celestial body similar to a star. It was for its appearance that the planet was named after goddess of love.
Earth. This is our home planet. That's what it's called soil, soil. It is in
Ancient farmers named the entire planet after the surface fertile layer.
Mars. For its ominous blood-red hue, the planet received the name god of war. I don’t know the origin of the name of the cinema :)

Origin of the names of the gas giant planets

These planets are large in size compared to the Earth and consist of gases. There are also 4 of them:

Jupiter. Named after main god on Olympus, probably for its size and beauty .
Saturn. Has beautiful gas cloud rings that can be easily
look through a telescope. According to legend, Saturn, god of agriculture, used to lead Olympus until Jupiter overthrew him. The planet is named after the ex-ruler for its majestic appearance.
Uranus. It was discovered in the 18th century and named after sky god.
Neptune. The most distant planet was discovered in the 19th century and was named after god of the sea for its blue color.