Review Process

All entries (over 3,600) were reviewed by the MESSENGER Education and Public Outreach team for:

  • Eligibility of the proposed artist
  • Completeness of entry
  • Quality of biographical information provided
  • Scholarly nature of biographical source information
Approximately 1200 entries, representing 583 different artists, fulfilled all of the entry requirements

Entries were subdivided according to the nature of the artist’s work
  • Literary Arts
  • Performance Arts (music)
  • Performance Arts (other) 
  • Visual Arts (painting, sculpture)
  • Visual Arts (graphic and media)
Lists of artists with biographical information, divided according to artistic field, were provided to at least 3 experts in that respective field
  • Each expert reviewed a list of approximately 100 artists and biographies
Experts we asked to provide
  • A list of their top 10 submissions
  • A list of their top 5 submissions with a detailed score (according to a rubric designed by the MESSENGER E/PO team; special weighting was given to artists originating from ethnic or cultural groups that are currently under-represented in the planetary nomenclature)
The E/PO team aligned the selections and reviews from the 3 experts. Selections of finalists were made according to:
  • Agreement between reviewers (top 5 or top 10 lists)
  • Overall scores provided by reviewers
At least 3 finalist names were selected per field of artistic endeavor (more were selected in cases where it was not possible to objectively make a decision)

A list of 17 finalists were identified and provided to the IAU’s Working Group on Planetary Nomenclature for their deliberation.

Five artist names were selected by the WGPN following a three week deliberative process.