Howdy! I've written an essay: "Why the Carnegie Institution for Science Should Name Four of the Newly Discovered Moons of Saturn Gullinkambi, Fjalar, Unnamed Rust-Red Rooster of Hel, and Eggther. A Persuasive Essay by Colonel Sanders" @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons Thread (1/62)

Why the Carnegie Institution for Science Should Name Four of the Newly Discovered Moons of Saturn Gullinkambi, Fjalar, Unnamed Rust-Red Rooster of Hel, and Eggther. A Persuasive Essay by Colonel Sanders @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons Thread (2/62)

The Carnegie Institution for Science recently discovered 20 new moons orbiting Saturn. This amazing discovery reveals that Saturn has the most moons of any planet in our solar system, making Saturn the Moon King. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (3/62)

The Carnegie Institution has asked for help in naming the moons. They want to name 17 of them after Norse giants. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (4/62)

I have written this persuasive essay to both emphatically urge and rigorously convince the Carnegie Institution for Science @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (5/62)

to name four of them after the Norse giant roosters Gullinkambi, Fjalar, and Unnamed Rust-Red Hel Rooster, and the giant Eggther. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (6/62)

The Carnegie Institution for Science should absolutely, without question, name four of the moons of Saturn after these Norse giants for their important role in Ragnarok and all their meaningful metaphorical implications. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (7/62)

I realize I am merely going to repeat my thesis statement, but I think it bears repeating. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (8/62)

I can’t stress this enough; in Norse mythology there’s literally giant chickens and a guy who sings with them, alerting everyone that the world is about to be destroyed and subsequently reborn. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (9/62)

There could not possibly be better Norse giants for which to name four of the newly discovered moons of Saturn. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (10/62)

There’s a lot to unpack here, especially for the uninitiated. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (11/62)

So perhaps a bit more information is required to fully understand my argument. There are a lot of layers and nuances to it. So, like the telling of Norse mythology, let us start at the beginning. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (12/62)

Now, I’m no expert in Norse mythology, an amateur at best, but here’s my understanding. First, some basic background about Norse mythology. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (13/62)

Norse mythology comes from folk tales of the North Germanic people from the time they were pagans through to the early Christianization of Scandinavia. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (14/62)

Much of what we know of Norse mythology comes from the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda. The Prose Edda, written by the Icelander Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century, and the Poetic Edda, a collection of Old Norse poems, @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (15/62)

both preserved the stories as Scandinavia was being converted to Christianity. Norse mythology tells of the gods, giants, dwarves, elves, trolls, and people and the birth, destruction, and rebirth of the universe. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (16/62)

The destruction of the world is called Ragnarok. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (17/62)

Most of the surviving tales of Norse mythology are about Odin, Thor, and Loki. Gods who, thanks to popular culture, many people know. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (18/62)

Odin is kind of the chief of the gods. He has a long beard and an eye patch. Odin knows Ragnarok is coming. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (19/62)

In the beginning of the Poetic Edda, Odin visits the seeress, a woman who can see the past and the future. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (20/62)

She tells Odin of the birth of the universe and the creation of all beings. She also tells him how the world will be destroyed during the events of Ragnarok, a massive war between the gods and the giants. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (21/62)

She tells him how, after Ragnarok, the world will be reborn again. So, like Odin, we, the readers, know the beginning and the end; we know where this story is going and that Ragnarok is going to happen. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (22/62)

That is an incredibly brief explanation of Norse mythology, but it is important contextual information. Here’s the passage from the Poetic Edda that is most crucial. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (23/62)

“On a hill there sat, | and smote on his harp,
Eggther the joyous, | the giants’ warder;
Above him the cock | in the bird-wood crowed,
Fair and red | did Fjalar stand”
@SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (24/62)

“Then to the gods | crowed Gullinkambi,
He wakes the heroes | in Othin’s hall;
And beneath the earth | does another crow,
The rust-red bird | at the bars of Hel.”
@SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (25/62)

Again, I’m an amateur in Norse mythology, so I probably missed some of the details. Please bear with me as this is the best a gentleman scholar of Norse mythology can do. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (26/62)

So you see, everything is cyclical. The constant destruction and renewal of the world. At the crux of that destruction and rebirth are the crowing giant roosters and the giant who sings along with them. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (27/62)

Moving beyond the narratives themselves to the lessons we can learn from them is not only instructive, @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (28/62)

but it further proves my point that the Carnegie Institution for Science should name the moons for the Norse giant roosters Gullinkambi, Fjalar, Unnamed Rust-Red Rooster of Hel, and the giant Eggther. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (29/62)

One of the most obvious lessons is that we should always embrace destruction and rebirth in our own lives. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (30/62)

Of course, I do not mean that literally our lives or universe are being destroyed and reborn. Metaphorically, each day we wake up to a new dawn, to the rooster crowing, and it is as if the world has been made anew. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (31/62)

We should greet this continual destruction and rebirth, signaled by the rooster crowing, with our own joyous singing. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (32/62)

We should always be trying to grow and change ourselves and greet this change with our own smote harps. That’s just a thing people should do with each new dawn. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (33/62)

Nothing could possibly serve as a better reminder of this than Gullinkambi, Fjalar, Unnamed Rust-Red Rooster of Hel, and Eggther. And I, for one, would like to be reminded of that when I gaze at the night sky. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (34/62)

These Norse giants also provide an interesting answer to the question, “What came first? The chicken or the egg?” @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (35/62)

In Norse mythology, neither came first. Thinking of things this way is to miss the point entirely. One cannot exist without the other. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (36/62)

A chicken cannot exist without having been an egg, and an egg cannot exist without there having been a chicken. It is almost tautological. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (37/62)

The universe cannot be created without Ragnarok, and Ragnarok cannot happen without the universe being created. What could be better to think about as we look into the night sky and wonder what any of it means? Nothing. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (38/62)

This is more rock solid evidence that four of the moons of Saturn should be named Gullinkambi, Fjalar, Unnamed Rust-Red Rooster of Hel, and Eggther. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (39/62)

Naming the moons for these giants honors all celestial bodies. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (40/62)

Just as most stories of Norse mythology are about Odin the All-Father, Thor, and Loki, most of our time thinking about space and celestial bodies concerns planets or supernovas or vastness in general, @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (41/62)

but naming the moons for these giants would be a wonderful reminder that even these small moons play an important role in our universe. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (42/62)

Every time someone considers them, one will remember the importance of minor players in our great cosmological story. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (43/62)

Having the moons named Gullinkambi, Fjalar, Unnamed Rust-Red Rooster of Hel, and Eggther also serves as a critical reminder of our universe’s eventual demise. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (44/62)

Our universe is always approaching its eventual entropic heat death. Which is a long time away, but we still know it’s going to happen. Just like Ragnarok. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (45/62)

I urge you, Carnegie Institution for Science, have these moons serve as harbingers of our universe’s march toward its own Ragnarok, entropy. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (46/62)

Four of the moons should be named for Gullinkambi, Fjalar, Unnamed Rust-Red Rooster of Hel, and Eggther because they illustrate how we should accept mortality as a part of a natural cycle. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (47/62)

When Eggther hears the doom-signaling crow, and he knows it’s over, he joyously sings, accepting death as a natural part of life. As we all should. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (48/62)

Learning to accept death as part of a natural cycle is an important reminder of why four of the moons of Saturn should be named Gullinkambi, Fjalar, Unnamed Rust-Red Rooster of Hel, and Eggther. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (49/62)

Another great reason to name moons for these giants is because they are intrinsically about space and time because they occupy different realms. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (50/62)

Gullinkambi is in Midgard, Fjalar, and Eggther are in Jotunheim, and Unnamed Rust-Red Rooster of Hel, obviously, is in Hel. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (51/62)

Because of this, when we gaze up and think of these giants, they remind us of the world we occupy, the ones beyond, the ones that came before, and the ones that we have yet to visit. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (52/62)

Naming the moons Gullinkambi, Fjalar, Unnamed Rust-Red Rooster of Hel, and Eggther would make thinking more broadly and poetically about space and time as inevitable as Ragnarok. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (53/62)

Naming many of the new moons of Saturn for Norse giants is a marvelous idea, @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (54/62)

and the Carnegie Institution for Science cannot possibly find better Norse giants for which to name four of the moons than the giant roosters Gullinkambi, Fjalar, and Unnamed Rust-Red Rooster in Hel and the giant Eggther. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (55/62)

They deserve this honor because they are giant chickens and a giant guy who sings with them, because of their momentous role in signaling Ragnarok, @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (56/62)

and because of all their metaphorical implications that help us understand space, time, and ourselves. @SaturnLunacy #NameSaturnMoons (57/62)

Thank (58/62)

You (59/62)

For (60/62)

Reading (61/62)

Sincerely, Colonel Sanders (62/62)