IAU
International Astronomical Union; ratifies official names for lunar features including Carroll and Integrity craters.
Last refreshed: 7 April 2026
Who decides whether the Carroll crater name becomes official?
Latest on IAU
- How does a crater get an official name on the Moon?
- A proposal is submitted to the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature, reviewed, then formally voted on by the IAU.
- Will the Carroll crater be officially named after Reid Wiseman's wife?
- The name was proposed by the Artemis II crew on 6 April 2026 and awaits post-mission IAU submission and ratification.Source: Space.com
- What is the IAU?
- The International Astronomical Union, founded in 1919, is the global authority for official names of celestial bodies and their surface features.
Background
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is the global body responsible for the official nomenclature of celestial bodies and their surface features. Two crater names proposed during the Artemis II lunar flyby on 6 April 2026 — Carroll and Integrity — were transmitted as formal proposals to Mission Control for post-mission IAU submission. Neither name is official until ratified by the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature.
The IAU was founded in 1919 and has standardised planetary and lunar naming since then. For the Moon, it maintains a registry of over 9,000 named features. The process for submitting a new name involves a proposal to the working group, a review period, and a formal vote. Proposals submitted by crew members are unusual but not unprecedented; several Apollo-era features carry names suggested by crews.
The Carroll and Integrity proposals are notable because they were generated in real time from deep space — the first such transmissions in over fifty years. Whether the IAU expedites or follows standard procedure for mission-originated proposals from a crewed spacecraft remains to be seen.