Why is Latin used so much when it comes to naming new discoveries, heck half the moon has Latin names?

Is Latin the official language astronomers from all around the world?

Why is Latin used so much when it comes to naming new discoveries, heck half the moon has Latin names?
It is tradition. Most of those names were adopted centuries ago when Latin WAS the language of science all over the world, much like English is today.
Reply:Galileo gave the lunar seas the name Mare, and their individual names. He used Latin because it was the language of scholars in his day. Lunar craters, however, are named for people.


Celetial features such as nebulas, novas, and constellations have Latin names for much the same reason, the names began back a few centuries ago when Latin was still big.


Features discovered on moons and planets thanks to the space program follow all sorts of rules (for Mars it includes naming features after science fiction writers, among other things).
Reply:Latin is used to name not only in astronomy, but in other sciences as well, since centuries ago. Latin is a dead language, that is, it's not evolving, not changing like English, French..., and that's one of the reasons it is preferred by the scientific community, because it gives a sense of stability and continuity; also, it makes possible to avoid confusion between scientists of different countries, since the names are kept in Latin, no matter the native tongue of the scientist.
Reply:In the age of discovery Latin was the language of scholars. With so many languages in Europe Latin was used because a lot of the ancient scientific discoveries that were seeing the light of day for the first time in more than a millennium were written down by the Romans.


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Studying the ancient writings is what started the Renaissance and the rediscovery of all the manuscripts could be done without being first translated into other languages, avoiding the problems of misinterpretation. That way everyone knew they were reading the exact same information.
Reply:Latin is an ancient Indo-European language that was originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. It gained wide currency, especially in Europe, as the official language of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire, and, after Rome's conversion to Christianity, of the Roman Catholic Church. Principally through the influence of the Church, it became the language of later medieval European scholars and philosophers.





Throughout most of the history of Western science, all scientific literature was written in Latin. Only recently has it been written in spoken languages like English. The use of Latin names has remained so that scientists that speak different languages can understand what they are talking about. Another reason is that many plants and animals have common names that differ by region. Having a Latin name avoids confusion among scientists.