We've littered the universe with nifty nicknames. There's the Red Planet (Mars), the
Tarantula Nebula (30 Doradus) and The Whale (a dark region on Pluto). Now it's time to spiff up the tongue-tying moniker of "(486958) 2014 MU69," a cold world located way out in the Kuiper Belt that is also the next destination for NASA's New Horizons spacecraft.
NASA and the SETI Institute are joining up to give the public a shot at coming up with a new nickname for MU69. You can check out current suggestions, vote for names and nominate your own through SETI's Frontier Worlds website.
Your fellow space fans are already busy nominating and voting. Just in time for the release of "Thor: Ragnorak," one of the leading vote-getters is "Mjölnir" for the superhero's hammer. Some of the other leading nominations are "Pluck & Persistence" (qualities of the spacecraft), "Peanut, Almond, Cashew" (possible shapes for MU69) and "Z'ha'dum" (a fictional planet from sci-fi show "Babylon 5"). Voting continues until Dec. 1. https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-new-horizons-spacecrafts-next-flyby-target-needs-nickname-seti/
