Some months ago, members of the MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache point observatory) survey (part of SDSS-IV) were asked to suggest ideas for a suitable taglines/catchphrase which would describe the survey in one sentence. This idea was that this would go on promotional materials SDSS-IV would take to the American Astronomical Society Meeting, and also the main SDSS website.
The working favourite to that point had been “the galaxy survey for people who love galaxies”, but we wanted something which described the scientific goals of the survey more precisely.
In the word of MaNGA PI, Kevin Bundy this request resulted in an “outpouring of creative, collective genius” (a phrase which Kevin suggested might itself be the appropriate one to describe the MaNGA team).
Here are some of the ideas the team came up with, catagorised by Kevin:
Ideas which reference The 3rd Dimension
- .. Now in 3D!
- Sloan goes 3D
- Sloan Galaxies in three dimensions
- Galaxies in 3D
- A new dimension in galaxy surveys 10 000 (nearby) galaxies mapped in 3D
- A multi-dimensional view of galaxies
- Galaxies in 3D by the thousands
- Thousands of local galaxies in 3D
- Ten thousand Galaxies. Three dimensions
Inspirational ideas
- To boldly go where no other Galaxy survey has gone before.
- Unravelling the galaxy avatar
- Ten thousand mysteries unfold
Direct (or descriptive) ideas:
- Census of local galaxies
- MaNGA: Deciphering galaxies pixel-by-pixel
- Observing the dynamical structures and composition of galaxies to unravel their evolutionary histories
- Galaxy birth, assembly, growth and ‘death’
- Galaxies Beyond the Central Fiber
- Spatially resolved spectroscopy of 10,000 nearby galaxies
Ideas Inspired by Biological Analogies
- Galaxy dissection
- Galaxies under the microscope
- Exploring the life cycle of galaxies
- Anatomising galaxies dead and alive
- Dissecting galaxies in their dark matter haloes
Humorous suggestions
- Galaxies do the full monty
- Everything you wanted to know about galaxies, and in 3D
- Experience galaxies in 3D, without the glasses
Clever/cultural references
- Taking spectra of the spectrum of galaxies
- Galaxies in 3D! It’s over 9000!!
- 10K3D
- How galaxies tick
The final decision was made to go with “Mapping the inner workings of thousands of nearby galaxies” for our website, and we have a banner which says “The 3D Lives of Galaxies”, although we also really like the creative idea of making an API to return all of these randomly.
Many thanks to: Jeff Newman, Bob Nichol, Kyle Westfall, Surhud More, Karen Masters, Aaron Dutton, Claire Lackner, Mike Merrifield, Daniel Thomas, Eric Emsellem, Carles Badenes, Anne-Marie Weijmans, Brian Cherinka, Demitri Muna, Brett Andrews, Christy Tremonti and Kevin Bundy for contributing ideas.