Prof de los Reyes also called for the twin Magellan Telescopes to be renamed.
They currently reside in Chile, which she described as “a country with a history of violent Spanish conquest”.
“Indeed, Magellan’s ‘discovery’ of the Strait of Magellan allowed Spanish conquistadors to explore Chile’s coast and led to genocidal campaigns against the native Mapuche people,” she said.
“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.”
Bob Blackman, the Conservative MP for Harrow East, described the calls to rename the galaxies as “absolute nonsense”.
He said: “We can all look back on various different people’s involvement in the slave trade, but the reality is that if you’re going to start renaming everything that involved everyone from the slave trade you won’t have many left.”
In 2020, Nasa said that it was “examining” its use of unofficial terminology for the use of some cosmic objects “as part of its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion”.
At the time, the American space body said that it would no longer refer to planetary nebula NGC 2392 as the “Eskimo Nebula” nor to a pair of spiral galaxies in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster as “Siamese Twins Galaxy”.
Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator of Nasa’s Science Mission Directorate, said at the time: “Our goal is that all names are aligned with our values of diversity and inclusion, and we’ll proactively work with the scientific community to help ensure that.
“Science is for everyone, and every facet of our work needs to reflect that value.”
Dr. Thomas Hughes is a UK-based scientist and science communicator who makes complex topics accessible to readers. His articles explore breakthroughs in various scientific disciplines, from space exploration to cutting-edge research.
