Planetary nomenclature

To found an authority on planetary nomenclature, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) was organized in 1919 to designate and standardize names for features on Solar System bodies.

[3] Names adopted by the IAU must follow various rules and conventions established and amended through the years by the Union.

Exceptions to this rule are valleys and craters on Mars and Venus; naming conventions for these features differ according to size.

Names for atmospheric features are informal at present; a formal system will be chosen in the future.

Boundaries (and thus coordinates) may be determined more accurately from geochemical and geophysical data obtained by future missions.

As for the larger objects, official names for any such small features would have to conform to established IAU rules and categories.

When space probes have landed on Mars, individual small features such as rocks, dunes, and hollows have often been given informal names.

All features on Phobos are named after scientists involved with the discovery, dynamics, or properties of the Martian satellites or people and places from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

Geological features on Triton should be assigned aquatic names, excluding those which are Roman and Greek in origin.