• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)

  • / science /
    • science overview
    • cosmology and dark energy
    • redshifts and distance
    • mapping the universe
    • the DESI science mission
    • the DESI survey
    • imaging surveys
  • / instrument /
    • instrument overview
    • telescope
      • tohono o’odham
    • corrector
    • focal plane system
    • fiber system
    • spectrograph
    • instrument control system
    • data systems
    • bringing DESI to life
      • commissioning Instrument
      • protoDESI
  • / collaboration /
    • DESI team
    • DESI builders
    • collaborating institutions
    • sponsors
    • code of conduct
    • vendors
    • collaboration policies
  • / press /
    • announcements
    • in the news
    • press releases
    • tweets by desisurvey
    • blog
    • acknowledgments
  • / galleries /
    • videos
    • image gallery
  • / for scientists /
    • data releases
    • instrument design
    • imaging data
    • target selection and survey validation
    • theory and simulations
    • other DESI science
    • key publications
    • all DESI papers
    • team login
    • request a DESI speaker
    • internal
  • / education & outreach /
    • meet a DESI member
    • blog
    • planetarium show
    • DESI high
    • interactive visualizations
    • DESI Merch

The new DESI ambassador: BaoBan

May 11, 2023 by

The story behind creating and naming our favorite coyote.
Samuel Brieden, The University of Edinburgh
May 12, 2023

Welcome our new DESI ambassador for Education and Public Outreach (EPO), BaoBan! You might have met him already, when he was presenting our powerful focal plane (see a virtual tour through it here) or wishing a happy new year. From now on, BaoBan is assisting us with science communications, as long as he is in the mood. Although BaoBan is very attracted to the Mayall telescope, he shows up at Kitt Peak quite rarely because, like other wild coyotes, BaoBan spends most of his time hunting in the Arizona mountains. But whenever we are lucky enough to be honored with his visit, an aura of ancient wisdom about life and the night sky surrounding him sparks new insights and creative ideas. It’s a bit magical!

Say Hi to BaoBan! He is our ambassador, and NOT a “mascot”! Being called a domesticated animal makes BaoBan so angry that anyone who dares to take such words in their mouth will eventually meet BaoBan’s mouth. And believe me, nobody wants to be bitten by BaoBan!

This article is a chronology of our common history with BaoBan. From the story of his ancestors, to how he was brought to life and given a name, and finally his meaning to us, to our roots as a scientific collaboration, and to our environment.

The Tohono O’odham Nation

DESI resides in the Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), which sits atop I’oligam Du’ag (audio below) in the homeland of the Tohono O’odham (audio below) Nation (TON). Since time immemorial the Tohono O’odham (TO), meaning “desert people”, have lived in the Sonoran desert and preserved their rich culture. The nation is governed by the TON Tribal Government, organized into 11 districts. You can learn more about the history and culture of the TON here. We are deeply grateful for their permission to undertake observations of the night sky within the TON homeland at KPNO, and we cannot emphasize enough that the success of our scientific mission would not be possible without the TON’s generosity.

Pronunciation of “I’oligam Du’ag”
Pronunciation of “Tohono O’odham”
The DESI logo
The DESI logo

It is this relation to the TON that must have inspired Berkeley Lab engineer (and artist!) Robin Lafever when he created the DESI logo in 2013, and in particular the detail in the lower right corner: the profile of a howling coyote. In fact, the coyote plays an important role in the TO mythology. Robin had seven different names for the coyote in mind, his favorite being “Bao Wao Wao”. “Bao” is reminiscent of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO), the primary cosmological observable DESI is measuring to infer the expansion history of the universe, and “Wao” represents the coyote’s howl.

A new coyote is born

The DESI logo inspired Claire Lamman, PhD student at Harvard University and member of the DESI EPO committee, to transform Robin’s profile-view creation into a fully-fledged comic figure.  As you can see in her comic strips, at first the coyote seems nice and harmless, but the sheer power of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument occasionally evokes his dark side. All Claire’s comic strips can be found here.

Left: Claire’s first comic strip featuring the DESI coyote. Right: The second installment. Not only was the DESI logo inspiration for the coyote, but also for his shirt! (click to enlarge)

Amazed by his strong character, the EPO committee considered how to introduce Claire’s extraordinary art to the public. There was only one thing missing for Claire’s comic figure to become even more successful than Looney Tunes legend Wile E. Coyote: a proper name!

Setting up a poll

Several candidates emerged from our initial brainstorming, playing either on the location of the telescope (Coyote-Kitt, Maya), on the pursued science (Cosmo-Coyote, Bao), or simply on the survey name itself (Desiree). This was so much fun that we decided to poll the entire collaboration for suggestions. Other names received were Can-do Canis, Desita, and the name of the original coyote in Robin’s DESI logo: Bao Wao Wao. Around 60 collaboration members voted in just one day, and the majority decided to conduct a naming contest within the Tohono O’odham school district (see the compilation of Slack messages below).

Compilation of Slack messages showing the result of the DESI internal poll about asking the TO community for help with finding a name. (click to enlarge)
Back to the roots

We first consulted Jacelle Erin Ramon-Sauberan, PhD Candidate at the University of Arizona, faculty at Tohono O’odham Community College, and information specialist for AURA/NOIRLab, and worked closely with KPNO. Jacelle put us in contact with the TON Youth Council  (TONYC). The TONYC consists of four representatives from each of the 11 districts, and their mission is to enhance the cultural awareness and self-esteem of TON youth within modern times by organizing social events. The Council holds monthly meetings, which are open to the public. Francine Senechal, the TONYC Manager, kindly invited us to present the coyote naming contest at a Council meeting.

At the same time we decided to reach out to the TON, two collaboration members independently raised the idea that the name include “Ban”, the word for “coyote” in the TO language. It was suggested that we connect “Ban” with the TO word “Ba:”, meaning “Where”, such that the combination “Ba:Ban” is extendable to “Where is coyote looking?” This would allude to the mysteries of dark energy DESI is trying to unravel, and sparked the obvious idea of “BaoBan”, combining “Ba:Ban” with the previous suggestions that include “Bao”.

The day of the TONYC meeting arrived, and fortunately it was held virtually so I could attend from Barcelona. After introducing DESI and the science we pursue with it, I talked about our plan to find a name for the DESI coyote. I provided a list of all the suggestions we had collected so far, as well as their variants, meanings, pronunciations, etc., and asked them to vote for the name they found most suitable. The TONYC members were interested and very keen to help. They agreed to bring the list of names into the local youth communities of the district each of them represents, engage their members to discuss the different options, and choose their favorite name.

The final decision

After thoroughly considering all names, discussing them within each district, and exchanging their ideas at a meeting, the TONYC voted, and Francine communicated the official result:

  1. BaoBan
  2. Cosmo Coyote

What a great choice! Within the EPO committee we immediately fell in love with the name BaoBan, as it nicely combined all the different ideas the collaboration had in mind throughout the process. “Ban” as the TO word for coyote, reminding us of the roots of where the DESI telescope is built, and “Bao” as both the sound the coyote makes, and a clear reference to DESI’s primary science goal: measuring BAO from galaxy maps. These ideas culminated in another new comic strip by Claire (below), which celebrates that together with the TONYC we found such a beautiful name for our DESI ambassador! And there is even more to the story…

Claire’s new comic strip explaining the meaning of BaoBan. (click to enlarge)
An alternative meaning

Not only did the TONYC vote for the name, they also put me in contact with TO language experts Leslie Luna and Ronald Geronimo from the TO Community College, with whom I discussed the prospect of connecting “BaoBan” to the meaning behind the similar suggestion “Ba: Ban”, where “Ba:” = “Where?” as mentioned before. As it turns out, the TO expression “Ba: ‘o …” actually means “Where is …”, but this does not imply that “Ba: ‘o Ban” would mean “Where is coyote”, because “‘o” is an auxiliary verb that must be accompanied by a full verb. However, we can extend the expression to “Ba: ‘o ñia g Ban” (audio below), which literally means “Where is coyote looking?” and argue that “BaoBan” (audio below) is just the short form of that longer name. In this way, the name BaoBan also serves as a symbol that we and the TON may work together to explore new discoveries in our beautiful sky.

Pronunciation of “Ba: ‘o ñia g Ban”
Pronunciation of “BaoBan”
Final remarks

Throughout this process it has been amazing to see how an enjoyable drawing and a simple idea (finding a name for that drawing) can lead to something big, both engaging the collaboration and establishing a new link between DESI scientists and the TO community.

BaoBan symbolizes how the enormous scientific effort by ~70 member institutions with over 700 active collaboration members from all over the world is deeply connected with the TO, who share part of their homeland to discover the mysteries of our universe. BaoBan reminds us that the night sky is the same for everyone, independent of national or cultural identity. Furthermore, BaoBan reminds us to always respect our roots and our environment, and to never forget that the deeper our maps of the cosmos become, the deeper the relationships we will foster among different cultures and people.

It is no coincidence that Robin Lafever began this processes at the very moment his pencil touched paper to create the DESI logo. Robin was known as a man with a wonderfully warm and engaging personality, who delighted everyone around him with his creativity. Almost two years after his passing he would surely be flattered that people enjoy his creation enough that they continue to develop it, from Bao Wao Wao to BaoBan.

Acknowledgements

I would like to express deep thanks to all the wonderful DESI collaborators involved in this journey, those who participated in the poll and brought in their naming suggestions, and especially Claire Lamman, Angela Berti, Biprateep Dey, Parker Fagrelius, and everyone from the DESI EPO committee. Special thanks also to Daniel Eisenstein, Dustin Lang, Eric Linder, David Sprayberry, Lori Allen, Arjun Dey, Nathalie Palanque-Delabroullie, Kyle Dawson, and Michael Levi. Finally, I am indebted to Jacelle Erin Ramon-Sauberan, Francine Senechal, Leslie Luna, and Ronald Geronimo for all their effort and kindness giving me insight into their fascinating culture.

Filed Under: blog, feature on homepage

Primary Sidebar

  • DESI High, the School of the Dark Universe, is Back!
  • DESI’s Evolving Dark Energy Lights up the News
  • At the Big Reveal: DESI’s December 2024 Unblinding Results
  • DESI DR2 Results: March 19 Guide
  • Closing Our Eyes to Truly See — “Blinding” in DESI’s Analysis of Its Cosmological Measurements
  • Charting the Dark Cosmic Web: Where DESI and Imaging Surveys Intersect
  • BaoBan Greets Spectators at 2025 Tohono O’odham Rodeo Parade
  • DESI Finds Black Holes are Common in Small Galaxies Too
  • Brushing Away the Dust to Uncover Cosmology: Examining the Sigma-8 Tension with DESI Galaxies
  • DESI’s 50M Milestone and a “Biggest Breakthrough” Honor
  • DESI 2024 Results: November 19 Guide
  • All is Not Lost: Tiny Groups of Galaxies Remember Their Origins
  • “5000 Eyes” Premieres in Mexico City
  • DESI 2024 Supporting Papers: June 11 Guide
  • DESI Joins in Hosting Kitt Peak Open Night for Tohono O’odham Nation; BaoBan Makes Guest Appearances
  • DESI 2024 in the News: Science Communicators Discuss the Cosmology Results from DESI’s Inaugural Year
  • DESI 2024 in the News: Is Dark Energy Weakening? New Uncertainty Invites Optimism About the Fate of the Universe
  • DESI 2024 Supporting Papers: April 11 Guide
  • DESI 2024 Results: April 4 Guide
  • A Record-Breaking Night
  • BaoBan Spotted at the Tohono O’odham Rodeo
  • A very nearby Type II Supernova in the Galaxy Messier 101
  • The DESI Early Data Release is now available
  • The new DESI ambassador: BaoBan
  • 5000 Eyes: creating the DESI planetarium film
  • Dusty views of the southwestern sky
  • Sneaking around with DESI data
  • Lightning and a lunar eclipse over Kitt Peak
  • Untangling the cosmic web
  • Recovery effort update two months after the Contreras Fire
  • First batch of Year 1 Key Project 1 papers
  • Contreras Fire threatens DESI and Kitt Peak National Observatory
  • One year and 12.8 million galaxy redshifts
  • DESI on a T-shirt (and stickers of course!)
  • Selecting targets for the DESI survey
  • The old is new again: social distancing while mapping the universe
  • Congratulations to Frank Valdes
  • The DESI peculiar velocity survey
  • DESI breaking records
  • A DIY guide for upgrading your $100 million world-class astronomical instrument
  • An upgraded DESI returns to the sky
  • Cosmic cartography
  • Diversity of DESI SV quasars
  • The beginnings of the 3-dimensional map
  • What do DESI’s 5000 eyes see?
  • Plugging away
  • DESI begins search for elusive dark energy
  • DESI begins its “One-Percent Survey”
  • DESI embarks on Survey Validation
  • An undergrad perspective on DESI
  • Women in DESI on International Women’s Day
  • Hunting the oxygen doublet in distant galaxies
  • Congratulations to David Weinberg
  • DESI imaging leaves a legacy at infrared wavelengths
  • DESI target selection
  • DESI successfully completes commissioning phase

Footer

TEAM LOGIN

twitter   instagram   facebook

Copyright © 2018 Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument [DESI]

Copyright © 2025 · Parallax Pro DESI on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in