Some of the words first used in my birth year seem like they should be older, some seem like they should be newer, but the most unexpected one is that I'm the same age as the name for my profession!
Replies
Planetary Science was born at Tranquility Base.
sep 1, 2025, 3:12 am • 3 0 • view
woah. Also angel dust, sexual harassment, bubblegum (!), and that extremely common word, vitellogenin
sep 1, 2025, 5:08 am • 1 0 • view
As the backwater discipline of "planetary astronomy" heated up with the Space Age dawning, naming this stuff became an issue. Was fairly obvious in the 1950s that once spaceflight got going, “planetology” would be a logical name for the study of planets. Failed to catch on, but survives in Hawai'i.
sep 1, 2025, 5:03 am • 3 0 • view
"Astrogeology” also did not catch on, though the USGS clings to it fiercely.
sep 1, 2025, 5:05 am • 3 0 • view
"Selenology" was in the running as long as folks were preoccupied by the Moon, but speaking of aereology/venerology/selenology quickly became absurd. "Planetary astronomy" wasn't entirely astronomy any more, with geologists and chemists getting involved.
sep 1, 2025, 5:09 am • 2 0 • view
I do call myself a hermeochemist (based on an argument 25 years ago with a Science editor who insisted that geochemistry could only apply to the Earth though she balked then when I wanted to refer to what we were doing at asteroid Eros as erotochemistry)
sep 1, 2025, 5:12 am • 8 1 • view
If you want to call yourself a hermeochemist, that's fine with me. I don't want to get into an argument with someone who has such a mercurial personality.
sep 1, 2025, 5:36 am • 3 0 • view
But it took some years to end up with (so far) “planetary science” as a consensus, a term astronomers, geologists, chemists, space physicists, meteorologists, and meteoriticists are able to agree upon. Ngram Viewer depicts the struggle. You were born at a propitious moment.
sep 1, 2025, 5:33 am • 0 0 • view