The visit of
New Horizons at Ultima Thule (still an unofficial name) to me brings up the question what one should call the objects in the Kuiper Belt. I do not like
transneptunian objects (a description, not a name) or
qubewanos .
The Solar System contains
planets,
dwarf planets and
minor planets, and all of these can possess
moons. Minor planets traversing interior to the orbit of Jupiter are labeled
asteroids, and these may be further subdivided into families according to their orbital or chemical characteristics. Orbiting the Sun in a 1:1 resonance with one of the major planets we have the
trojans, and between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune there are a few
centauers.
The latter two groups derive their names from Greek mythology. In classical times the Greeks had a name for a far-off, icy-cold, practically inaccessible place, namely
Thule; a trade station in northern Greenland once had this name. In the Solar System there is also a region which is distant, extremely cold and difficult to reach, namely the space outside the orbit of Neptune, populated with many minor planets. I propose to name these
thuloids after Thule, giving them a short and yet classical name. One would then no longer have to refer to them as transneptunian objects (a long term) or TNO's (an acronym). The thuloids in the Kuiper-belt also contain families, one of which are the
plutoids, objects in a 2:3 resonance with Neptune. The group of icy objects making up the
scattered disk is as yet unnamed (not counting SDOs), but
scythoids come to mind, named after the Scythians, a martial people with whom the Greeks had a troublesome relationship.