Seen in this NASA photo is nebula NGC 2392, which no longer will be called the "Eskimo Nebula." It is about 5,000 light years away.
The names of grocery store items, pro sports teams and country music bands have all been changed after being criticized as racially insensitive.
Now, NASA is adding celestial bodies to the list that includes Aunt Jemima, the Washington Football Team and hitmakers The Chicks and Lady A.
"Eskimo Nebula" and "Siamese Twins Galaxy" are out, for example.
"Nicknames are often more approachable and public-friendly than official names for cosmic objects, such as Barnard 33, whose nickname 'the Horsehead Nebula' invokes its appearance," NASA said in a release. "But often seemingly innocuous nicknames can be harmful and detract from the science."
NASA is examining its use of phrases for planets, galaxies and other cosmic objects "as part of its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion."
The space agency says it "will use only the official, International Astronomical Union designations in cases where nicknames are inappropriate."
Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C., said, "Science is for everyone, and every facet of our work needs to reflect that value."
In June, Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream said it was dropping the brand "Eskimo Pie" after a century. The word is commonly used in Alaska to refer to Inuit and Yupik people, according to the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska. "This name is considered derogatory in many other places because it was given by non-Inuit people and was said to mean 'eater of raw meat.'" People of Canada and Greenland prefer other names.
"Siamese twins" is an antiquated expression for conjoined twins, based on brothers from Siam (now Thailand) who were used as sideshow freaks in the 19th century.
The renaming trend followed worldwide protests against racism and police brutality after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police.
Hubble telescope: 30 years of photos
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope sent back its first image from space on May 20, 1990. Here are some of the iconic images Hubble has sent back since.
Carina Nebula
In this image provided by NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team, a stellar jet in the Carina Nebula is pictured in space.
Space shuttle Atlantis
In this tightly cropped handout image provided by NASA, the NASA space shuttle Atlantis is seen in silhouette during solar transit at 10:27 a.m. EDT, May 18, 2009, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Crab Nebula
This image gives the most detailed view so far of the entire Crab Nebula ever made. The image is the largest image ever taken with Hubble's WFPC2 workhorse camera.
Seyfert's Sextet
This image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a group of galaxies called the Seyfert's Sextet on June 26, 2000. Although the name of this grouping suggests that there are six, there are in reality only four galaxies in the group that are slowly merging into one.
Lagoon Nebula
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a pair of one-half-light-year-long interstellar "twisters," eerie funnels and twisted-rope structures, in the heart of the Lagoon Nebula, which lies 5,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. The central hot star, O Herschel 36 (lower right), is the primary source of the ionizing radiation for the brightest region in the nebula, called the Hourglass.
Spiral galaxy NGC 4631
An image of NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope shows a halo of hot gas surrounding spiral galaxy NGC 4631 that is similar to the Milky Way galaxy, June 19, 2001. The orange color in the middle of the image represents ultraviolet radiation as observed by UIT, tracing massive stars in the galaxy.
Little Ghost Nebula
The Hubble Space Telescope took this image of a dying star named "NGC 6369" on Nov. 7, 2002. The star, also known as the "Little Ghost Nebula," is 2000 to 5000 light years from Earth and is similar in mass to our sun. The ghostly halo surrounding the star is caused by the shedding of the star's outer layers during the final stages of its life cycle.
Cone Nebula
The Cone Nebula, an innocuous pillar of gas and dust, is seen in this picture unveiled by astronomers on April 30, 2002.
Nebula IC 1396
Resembling a flaming creature on the run, this image exposes the hidden interior of a dark and dusty cloud in the emission Nebula IC 1396. Young stars previously obscured by dust can be seen here for the first time.
Cas A supernova
An image of a Cas A supernova reveals the remnants of a section of the upper rim of the youngest known supernova identified in our Milky Way galaxy. Dozens of tiny clumps near the top of the image are actually small fragments of the star, and each clump is approximately 10 times larger than the diameter of our solar system. The varying colors of the supernova are caused by glowing atoms.
Kepler's supernova
This image released Oct. 7, 2004, by NASA shows Kepler's supernova remnant produced by combining data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory. Kepler's supernova was first seen 400 years ago by sky watchers, including famous astronomer Johannes Kepler. The combined image unveils a bubble-shaped shroud of gas and dust that is 14 light-years wide and is expanding at 4 million miles per hour (2,000 kilometers per second).
Whirlpool Galaxy and Eagle Nebula
In this composite handout image released from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Whirlpool Galaxy and Eagle Nebula are seen April 25, 2005.
Fomalhaut
In this handout provided by NASA, a visible-light image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a red ring of dust and debris that surrounds the star Fomalhaut and the newly discovered planet Fomalhaut b, orbiting its parent star.
Pluto and its moons
This undated image taken by the Hubble telescope shows Pluto and its moons Charon, Nix and Hydra. The International Astronomical Union announced on Aug. 24, 2006, that it no longer considered Pluto a planet, a status it had held since its discovery in 1930.
Jupiter
A curtain of glowing gas is wrapped around Jupiter's north pole like a lasso Dec. 19, 2000, in a Hubble telescope photo. The curtain of light, called an aurora, is produced when high-energy electrons race along the planet's magnetic field and into the upper atmosphere. The electrons excite atmospheric gases, causing them to glow. The aurora resembles the same phenomenon that crowns Earth's polar regions.
Radiant Star
The Radiant Star, Sept. 13, 1996.
'Eskimo' Nebula
Hubble takes a look at the "Eskimo" Nebula in this March 6, 2000, image. This stellar relic, first spied by William Herschel in 1787, was nicknamed the "Eskimo" Nebula because, when viewed through ground-based telescopes, it resembles a face surrounded by a fur parka.
NGC 1999
Just weeks after NASA astronauts repaired the Hubble Space Telescope in December 1999, the Hubble Heritage Project snapped this picture of NGC 1999, a nebula in the constellation Orion. The Heritage astronomers, in collaboration with scientists in Texas and Ireland, used Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) to obtain the color image.
Saturn
These Hubble Space Telescope images, captured from 1996 to 2000, show Saturn's rings open up from just past edge-on to nearly fully open as it moves from autumn toward winter in its Northern Hemisphere, part of the course of its 29-year journey around the sun.Â
Mars
A comparison image of the planet Mars reveals that a global dust storm has engulfed the planet. The storm is comprised of fine dust and obscures all surface features.
Stingray Nebula
The Stingray Nebula as photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope April 2, 1998.
Supernova self-destruction
The self-destruction of supernova 1987-A(C) is shown in this composite image taken in September 1994, February 1996 and July 1997.
Hubble Space Telescope
This April 6, 1994, image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows stars that lie near the center of our galaxy some 25,000 light-years distant. But one object, the blue curved streak (upper right), is something much closer. An uncatalogued, mile-wide bit of rocky debris orbiting the sun only light-minutes away strayed into the cameras field while the image was being exposed.
Moons of Jupiter
This is a Hubble Space Telescope "family portrait" of the four largest moons of Jupiter.
Elliptical galaxy
This April 1996 image from Hubble shows the beautiful, eerie silhouette of dark dust clouds against the glowing nucleus of the elliptical galaxy NGC 1316. It may represent the aftermath of a 100 million-year-old cosmic collision between the elliptical and a smaller companion galaxy.
Mars
This image released Aug. 27, 2003, shows a close-up of the red planet Mars when it was just 34,648,840 miles away. The color image was assembled from a series of exposures. Many small, dark, circular impact craters can be seen, attesting to the Hubble telescope's ability to reveal fine detail on the planet's surface.
Hubble Space Telescope
The sun reflects off the newly installed solar panels of the Hubble Space Telescope as it sits in the cargo bay of the space shuttle Endeavour on Dec. 9, 1993.
Hubble Space Telescope
Jeff Rudolph, president of the California Science Center in Los Angeles, is photographed in front of a Hubble Space Telescope image of part of the Carina Nebula, a place in our galaxy where stars are born, at the California Science Center on Aug. 17, 2012.
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