Frank Herbert's planets land on Titan

The United States Geological Survey's Astrogeology Science Center, working with the International Astronomical Union, has announced that dark areas on Saturn's moon Titan, assumed to be plains, will be given the descripter term "planitia". They will be given names using the theme "Names of planets from the Dune series of science fiction novels by American author Frank Herbert (1920-1986)."

The first planitia name on Titan has also been approved: Chusuk Planitia is located at 5.0°S, 23.5°W. Chusuk, in the novels, is \the fourth planet of Theta Shalish; the so-called "Music Planet" noted for the quality of its musical instruments.

As more features are named, they will be listed on this page in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

This pdf picture of Titan shows the newly named Chusuk Planitia nearly centered on the image, while this one has it at the extreme right edge of the map.

There is already an asteroid named for Frank Herbert, personally. Number 115561 Frankherbert was first observed in 1987, and has an absolute magnitude of 14.6. It orbits the Sun between 2.7 and 3.3 AUs in 1928 days.