1108 Demeter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1108 Demeter is a main-belt asteroid orbiting the Sun. It was discovered by Karl Reinmuth in Heidelberg, Germany on May 31, 1929. Its provisional designation was 1929 KA. It was named after the Greek goddess of fruitful soil and agriculture.[2]
[edit] Naming conflict with 1 Ceres in Greek
The goddess Demeter is the Greek equivalent of Roman Ceres. When 1 Ceres was named, the Greeks called it Demeter, effectively translating the name into Greek, rather as English uses Anglo-Latin Ceres rather than the original Italian Cerere. However, this created a problem when 1108 Demeter was named. The Greeks resolved this by using an archaic form of the name, Δημήτηρ Dēmêtēr, for the new body, distinguishing it from the classical form Δήμητρα Dêmētra that had been used for 1 Ceres. However, Greek-influenced Slavic languages such as Russian had adopted Latin/Italian Cerera for 1 Ceres, and were thus free to use the classical Greek form Demetra for 1108 Demeter.
[edit] References
- ^ "JPL Small-Body Database Browser". http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=1108. Retrieved October 9, 2007.
- ^ Schmadel, Lutz D. (2003). Dictionary of Minor Planet Names. Springer. ISBN 3-540-00238-3.
