![]() "When referring to 'the Moon' - that is, our Moon, Luna, site of Neil Armstrong's landing in 1969 - the word should be capitalized," he wrote. Simply put, Spudis said, the AP Stylebook is wrong. NASA, which sent a dozen astronauts to the lunar surface from 1969 to 1972, capitalizes the name of Earth's moon. "My guess is that some classically educated nitpicker who was forced to sit through endless hours on the joys of the ablative absolute in Latin class decided that the Roman-named objects of the universe were worthy of linguistic worship but the vulgar, barbarian Germanic names given to those other three bodies did not deserve to be capitalized." "Interestingly, the AP Stylebook says to capitalize the Earth but not the Sun and Moon," Spudis wrote. Spudis was a senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. That is the question, wrote lunar expert Paul Spudis in a 2009 article for Air & Space magazine. ![]() Related: Solar system facts: A guide to things orbiting our sun Nitpicker Do use 'the' in front of 'Sun' and 'Moon' as applicable." Do not capitalize 'solar system' and 'universe.' Another note on usage: 'Earth,' when used as the name of the planet, is not preceded by 'the' you would not say 'the Neptune' or 'the Venus.' When 'earth' is lowercased, it refers to soil or the ground, not the planet as a whole. Capitalize 'Sun' when referring to our Sun but not to other suns. Capitalize 'Moon' when referring to Earth's Moon otherwise, lowercase 'moon' (e.g., 'The Moon orbits Earth,' 'Jupiter's moons'). "Capitalize the names of planets (e.g., 'Earth,' 'Mars,' 'Jupiter'). NASA has a different point of view, which the agency lays out in its Style Guide for NASA History Authors and Editors:
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