In keeping with the science fiction theme of the last entry, let’s talk about star names and the mental visions they conjure up when we say them. Try Vindemiatrix, for example. It’s the third-brightest star in the consellation Virgo. In his Star of the Week entry for this star, Jim Kaler describes the name of the star as a “somewhat corrupted feminized Latin form for the original Greek name that meant ‘the Grape Gatherer.'”

When I say the word “Vindemiatrix” (pronounced “Vin-duh-me-AY-trix”), I think of a space-faring civilization living on Vindemiatrix III (a third planet out from that star). Now, I don’t know whether there IS a third planet in orbit around this star, but it’s a cool name.

How about Zuben Elschemali or Zuben Algenubi? Romantic-sounding, evocative of far-off lands on distant planets. I always wanted to hear those planets named in Star Trek or other science-fiction shows. I think I remember hearing Captain Picard once direct his ship to the Cor Caroli V system, which would be some planet(s) around stars in Canes Venatici.

To that end, I recently stumbled across a web site that has listed all the planets visited in the Star Trek universe. They’ve listed them by quadrant and spectral class, with their names. It’s a spinoff of the book Star Trek Star Charts: The Complete Atlas of Star Trek, which I first examined at a Trek convention where I was a guest speaker a few years ago. A very cool way to teach star names and make them relevant.

The topic of unusual star names reminds me of the time I went down to New Mexico to cover a story for The Denver Post Empire Magazine. The story was about atmospheric physics, specifically how clouds become electrified enough to zot out lightning. The Irving Langmuir Lightning Lab atop Mt. Baldy in the center of the state near Socorro had a team of researchers studying cloud electrification and they had done some work where they basically reversed the charge of a cloud as it passed over the summit of the mountain. The local paper had run a headline saying “Scientists turn cloud upside down.” My editor saw it and sent me down to the get the story.

The chief scientist was a guy named Bernard Vonnegut, and on the way up to meet him, I had been warned by the PR chief for New Mexico Tech not to ask Dr. Vonnegut about his famous younger brother, Kurt. So, I didn’t. But I did spend several days atop the mountain with Dr. V, and learned a lot about cloud physics. So much so that I wrote a story that subsequently won a science writing award for the Post.

On the last day atop the mountain we were waiting for a cloud to form and Dr. V and I were sitting in a sunny room having a cold drink. We were sort of passing the time chit-chatting. He got up to check an instrument reading, and when he sat down he said, “I suppose you want to know something about my brother.”

I burst out laughing and said, “Well, they told me not to ask you about him, and so I respected that.” He laughed.

“I don’t mind talking about Kurt. He’s always been so imaginative. Back when I’d come home from college and he was a teenager, he’d tell me these stories about far-off stars and planets and worlds that he’d invented.”

“Did he ever mention Tralfamador?” I asked.

Bernard nodded. “Yes, that was one of them.”

Tralfamador is a world invented by a character in the book Slaughterhouse-Five. Even though the book is quite ironic and dystopic, I was always taken with the name Tralfamadore. It just sounds like a place so far away that you’d have to travel light-years to get there. Sort of like Vindemiatrix and Sirius and Zuben Elschemali and Miaplacidus and all the other stars whose names evoke not just meanings in Earth languages, but visions of far-off lands and distant stars with planets containing beings we have yet to meet.