Students throughout Hawaii now have the chance to name one of two cameras headed to the moon.
The mission, led by the International Lunar Observatory Association, plans to take some of the first-ever pictures of the Milky Way galaxy from the moon’s surface.
“It is a modest but significant step toward keeping Hawaii central to lunar, solar system and Milky Way Galaxy science and exploration,” said ILOA Founder Steve Durst. “Returning to the moon — in peace and with aloha — is vitally important and should be an overarching goal for humankind going forward.”
ILOA would like the name to reflect the alohathe nonprofit feels toward the people who support their ongoing work each day.
“We are open for the ILO-X camera to be named anything that comes forth from the imagination and inspiration of local students,” Durst said
From now until May 26, ILOA invites all public, private, charter and homeschool students throughout the state to participate in naming the narrow field-of-view camera.
Students can submit one name per form and an unlimited number of names per class via a Google form link at https://tinyurl.com/2p965km6.
The winning name will be selected by a five-member panel of Hawaii residents and will be announced at the start of next school year.
Based in Waimea, ILOA is sending two ILO-X cameras aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to the moon to capture the center of the Milky Way Galaxy in high-resolution.
The cameras were designed and built in Canada by Canadensys Aerospace Corporation and will be launched from Florida via Intuitive Machines IM-1, reflecting the international nature of Hawaii astronomy and its collaborations around the world.
“The moon can be considered Earth’s 8th continent. And similar to the 7th continent (Antarctica) where international exploration and science is conducted in peace, ILOA hopes to conduct astronomy from the moon with international collaborations,” Durst said. “Global contributions to astronomy have led to ground-breaking discoveries, such as the recent Event Horizon Telescope imaging of Powehi, the first-ever imaged black hole, which would not have been possible without eight international telescopes in six locations.”
Set to launch on June 1, the cameras are part of a precursor for a larger mission planned by ILOA. The flagship mission plans to install facilities for individuals on the south pole of the moon.
“We hope our future follow-on missions after precursor ILO-X will have more advanced instruments that could act as long-term observatories attached to landers and survive the lunar night,” said Durst. “Inevitably, when people begin landing and working on the moon again, we believe there will be numerous international observatories and astrophysics instruments on the lunar surface.”
ILOA Hawaii is an inter-global nonprofit enterprise incorporated back in 2007. The primary goal of ILOA is to expand human understanding of the cosmos through observation from the moon — with aloha.