EDMOND Halley was by all accounts a jolly, jovial little man. He was born 340 years ago on November 8th, 1656, and insofar as we think of him at all today, we remember him for the comet that now bears his name. But he also made several important contributions to meteorology, and more unusually, is one of the select band of contributors to that science to have a feature of the Moon named after him.
It became a popular pastime among astronomers from about 1650 onwards to try to map the Moon and to assign names to physical features of particular prominence. In general, the flat areas which were once thought to be oceans have names the cartographer seemed to think might suit their character, or perhaps his mood as he observed them. Thus there is the Sea of Nectar, Mare Nectaris, the Lake of Dreamers, Laca Somniorum, and the Marsh of Sleep, the Palus Somnii. Others have names that are distinctly meteorological, like Mare Imbrium, the Sea of Showers, Sinus Iridum, the Bay of Rainbows and Mare Nubilum, the Sea of Clouds.
The craters on the Moori, however, are named after individuals who have distinguished themselves in various walks of life. The vast majority are, naturally enough, astronomers, but other professions are represented too. In addition to ancient heroes like Caesar and Alexander, there are, for example a dozen or so explorers (like Vasco da Gama and Columbus), a biographer (Plutarch), a printer (Gutenberg), a naturalist (Charles Darwin), a writer of science fiction (Jules Verne), a brace of chemists like the Curies and Pasteur, a sprinkling of poets, and even an electrician (Thomas Edison).
In addition to Edmond Halley, a number of well known meteorologists feature on the list. Craters have been named after Anders Celsius, who needs no introduction, and Rene Antoine de Reaumur whose scale of temperature did not survive as long.
Evangelista Torricelli earned his place by inventing the barometer and Otto von Guericke, who improved on the design, also has a lunar landmark to his name.
Among the 19th century meteorologists to have craters named in their honour were Heinrich Willelm Dove, the Prussian climatologist, the American Matthew Fontaine Maury who initiated formal international co operation in the science, and James Glaisher who ascended to 30,000 feet in a balloon in 1862 in search of data in the upper atmosphere. And last by no means least, a lunar crater has been named after Thomas Romney Robinson, the director of Armagh Observatory, who invented the rotating cup anemometer for measuring wind speed in 1846.