Uncle Larry, more formally known as Larry Kimura, an associate professor of Hawaiian language and studies at the University of Hawaii, listened to her describe the system as something meant to help detect cold dark things in the universe and light imperceptible to the human eye.
On the spot, he came up with the suggestion of “namakanui,” naming it after big-eyed fish that swim in Hawaiian waters at night.
Six months later, Kimura’s insights would draw much wider attention as officials credited him with giving a name to the first-ever picture of a black hole.
Dempsey and other researchers described the image to him two weeks ago, and she said she watched his face “just light up.” In a moment that she described as “astonishing” and “mind-bending,” he came up with one Hawaiian word for the black hole that took scientists six research papers to capture: powehi.
The word is derived from the Kumulipo, a centuries-old Hawaiian creation chant of 2,102 lines, and it means “the adorned fathomless dark creation.” It stems from “po,” which means powerful, unfathomable and ceaseless creation, and “wehi,” an honorific befitting someone who would wear a crown, Kimura said in an interview on Friday.
“Powehi as a name is so powerful because it provides real truths about the image of the black hole that we see,” Dempsey said.
Kimura, who has been studying the chant for years, said the naming “all just fell into place.”
He said he regarded the attention it was receiving as “a great happening for science and Hawaiian language and identity revitalization.” He said it would help promote the preservation of the Hawaiian indigenous language, which had been endangered.
So far, powehi has been adopted as the official Hawaiian name of the black hole. Gov. David Y. Ige of Hawaii issued a proclamation declaring April 10 “Powehi Day.”
A more formal approval for the name would have to come from the International Astronomical Union, said Geoffrey C. Bower of the Hawai’i operations at the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics. A submission to the union would come only if the consortium of more than 200 scientists and 13 funding institutions involved in the project agreed to support it, he said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.