I wrote before about the Rathmore Chaos, a feature of Jupiter’s moon Europa which has been named after an ancient fort in County Antrim (and also shares its name with the grammar school I attended). The features of Europa take their names from: 1) places associated with the Europa legend, which is fair enough; 2) places from Celtic legend, which is OK though Welsh and Irish are rather mixed up, so is the orthography, and so are fact and fiction; and 3) “Celtic” (sic) stone rows and circles.

This last one bothers me a bit. It is certainly a fine thing to name features of another world after your favourite megalithic monuments, but most of those that have been commemorated in this way long pre-date the Celts! The list of places on Europa named in this way is as follows:

Butterdon Linea – after the stone circle and stone row on Butterdon Hill in Dartmoor
Callanish (large ringed feature) – after stone circle in the Hebrides
Corick Linea – after stone circle and stone row near Draperstown
Drizzlecomb Linea – after another Dartmoor stone circle and row
Drumskinny Linea – after stone circle near Fermanagh
Kennet Linea – I suspect after the West Kennet Avenue near Avebury
Mehen Linea – slightly baffles me; supposedly a “stone row in Brittany” but I don’t find any monument with that name; could be an error for “Menec”?
Merrivale Linea – after another set of stone circles and rows on Dartmoor
Sharpitor Linea – yet another Dartmoor alignment
Staldon Linea – Once again, Dartmoor, though usually spelt Stalldown
Tormsdale Linea – the explanation says this is after an Irish stone row, but in fact it is in Caithness
Yelland Linea – after a now buried stone alignment in North Devon (but, for once, not on Dartmoor)

I think the IAU might need to do a little more vigorous fact-checking. Apart from anything else, the geographical balance is a bit surprising – only one name taken from Brittany, and that apparently wrong!