Scientist Dr. Rita Schulz On Mercury’s Newly Christened Asawa Crater

Ruth Asawa has worked tirelessly for building of the School of the Arts near San Francisco's Civic Center." width="970" height="647" data-caption='Asawa is the latest artist to lend their name to a planetary feature via the IAU naming committee. <span class="media-credit">Photo by Deanne Fitzmaurice/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images</span>'>

About a month ago, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced that it had named a crater on Mercury for sculptor Ruth Asawa (1926-2013), who will have a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art opening in October 2025. The exhibition is no doubt related to Asawa’s booming popularity in recent years, though the eponymous planetary feature is forever: if private space companies make good on their promise to colonize other planets, humans may one day hike along the ridge of Asawa Crater. As such, we caught up with Dr. Rita Schulz, chair of the IAU’s Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN) and part of the team heading the ongoing BepiColombo mission to Mercury, to hear more about how this historic decision was made.

My readers are coming from an art background so could you please offer them a brief history of the IAU and how it came to be the naming authority for such matters?

The IAU became the arbiter of planetary and satellite nomenclature when it was founded in 1919. However, at that time, there was not yet so much to do because the only features that could be clearly identified on the surface of other bodies in our Solar System were the big features on the Moon that could be seen with the naked eye or by the then available small telescopes. Only when humans started to send space probes to the Moon and other planets did it become necessary to set up a Planetary Nomenclature System.

I know that more than 400 craters of Mercury have been named so far—all of them for artists, writers, poets and creatives of different disciplines, as just those on Mars are named for scientists. What other criteria do you look for in a nominee? How do you consider whose legacy is worthy?

Planetary nomenclature is used to uniquely identify a feature on the surface of a solar system body so that the feature can be easily located, described and discussed (e.g., on maps, in scientific papers or in presentations). Planetary features are named only when members of the professional science community have a specific scientific need to name a planetary surface feature—for instance, when they are writing a scientific paper about a certain surface feature on a certain body (for example, a crater on Mercury).

There are also rules about which names are to be used on which planet. It is not possible to just use any name you like on any planet because this would end up in chaotic naming. Instead, there is a list of categories/themes for each planet that defines from which category a suitable name can be selected for a certain type of feature.

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For example, on Mercury, craters are named after “artists, musicians, painters and authors who have made outstanding or fundamental contributions to their field and have been recognized as art historically significant figures for more than fifty years,” while dorsa [large ridges] are named after: “Scientists who have contributed to the study of Mercury” and montes [mountainous regions] are named after: “Words for ‘hot’ in various languages.” Only if a name fits the definition of the theme can it be approved.

Not only are certain craters on Mars named for scientists but also the craters on the Moon and certain features on other planets, including the dorsa on Mercury. The theme for craters on Mars of sizes above 50 km is: “Scientists, especially those who have contributed significantly to the study of Mars; writers and others who have contributed to the lore of Mars.”

I first learned of this naming convention through Kim Stanley Robinson’s sci-fi novel 2312, which actually begins on Mercury near Tintoretto Crater. Why name craters after artists? Is this for the benefit of people who may one day colonize Mercury or more for folks down here on Earth today?

It is extremely unlikely that Mercury will ever be colonized. It has no atmosphere; the sunlit side is 430C hot, and the opposite side is -180C cold. When the space probe Mariner 10 flew by Mercury in 1974, the first-ever surface features on that planet were imaged.

So the WGPSN (founded in 1973) decided on the categories/themes for the various features detected and chose the theme for craters on Mercury. They probably chose the artist category/theme because when you define a category, you need to make sure that you can fill it with enough names for the amount of features existing. Since there is a huge number of craters on Mercury, a theme is needed that can be filled with a lot of names from all over the world. I could imagine that artists would be an obvious choice (also because the craters on the Moon were already named after scientists), but I do not know how the discussions went in 1974.

Could you please take us through the naming process? I imagine Ruth Asawa was among a list of other nominees. What was it about Asawa’s work in particular that spoke to the committee? Her work is otherworldly, certainly. 

Ruth Asawa was one of eight artists suggested in the naming proposal. We went through our usual review process, and her name was one of those that fit the theme for craters on Mercury. We strive to increase the representation of female artists in naming craters on Mercury because this was neglected after the Mariner 10 flybys in 1974. We made sure that all eight names were those of female artists.

With the boom in private space companies, we’re beginning what the New York Times has called the “new space race.” What are the implications for interplanetary naming?

We do not name any features if there is no scientific need for naming according to our rules: “Commemoration of persons on planetary bodies should not normally be a goal in itself.” Therefore, we expect more work for the WGPSN in terms of dealing with proposals but no large increase in names.

On Mercury, the IAU is making great strides in merging the worlds of science and culture. Why do you think these tend to be so disparate when each discipline has much to teach the other?

I do not think that the worlds of science and culture are disparate. I personally think that scientific research requires a lot of fantasy and thinking outside the box. Most of the researchers I know are very interested in art and many try to contribute (not necessarily successfully) through writing, painting, etc. One of my successful former colleagues is [sci-fi author] Alastair Reynolds.