Woke Astronomers Want to Rename Magellanic Clouds “The Night Sky Belongs to Everyone”
A group of woke astronomers is working to rename two neighbors of the Milky Way, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, because explorer Ferdinand Magellan should now be canceled.
According to astronomer Mia de los Reyes and some of her colleagues, Magellan, the leader of the first expedition to successfully circumnavigate the globe, must be wiped from memory because he “enslaved and killed Indigenous people encountered on the voyage.”
de los Reyes writes in Physics Magazine:
I and many other astronomers believe that astronomical objects and facilities should not be named after Magellan, or after anyone else with a violent colonialist legacy. We would like the International Astronomical Union—the body in charge of naming astronomical objects—to rename the Magellanic Clouds.
