• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

IAU: Sign up to name the new exoplanets

P

Perspicuo

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2011
Messages
1,289
Location
Costa Rica
Basic Beliefs
Empiricist, ergo agnostic
Name ExoWorlds
http://nameexoworlds.org/


International Astronomical Union
NameExoWorlds

Help decide the names of planets orbiting other stars

For Public and Astronomy-Interested Organisations

For individuals

To vote, sign up, and we’ll let you know when we’re ready for you!
Click to expand...

I don't know if this is legitimate, but it would be great if it were.
 
I would prefer people with a certain level of culture to name them. If the planet is on a star belonging to a constellation named after something, that the planets have something to do with that.

For example, planets around stars in Aquarius (α Aquaril, β Aquaril, and so on) be given names suggestive of water, pitchers, wells. Another possibility is, since names for water-themed concepts can be limited (and after a number of them, boring), α Aquaril is also called Sadalmelik, "named in Arabic for the phrase "the lucky stars of the king"" (cit.), which gives crown (corona, diadema), Shah (Parsi for king), etc.

Ah, wishful thinking.
 
Perspicuo said:
I would prefer people with a certain level of culture to name them. If the planet is on a star belonging to a constellation named after something, that the planets have something to do with that.

For example, planets around stars in Aquarius (α Aquaril, β Aquaril, and so on) be given names suggestive of water, pitchers, wells. Another possibility is, since names for water-themed concepts can be limited (and after a number of them, boring), α Aquaril is also called Sadalmelik, "named in Arabic for the phrase "the lucky stars of the king"" (cit.), which gives crown (corona, diadema), Shah (Parsi for king), etc.

Ah, wishful thinking.
Click to expand...

They already have constelation-based names today. (Earth would be Sol-3, right?). I wonder what constelation Sol is in, lol... If the star doesn't have a familiar name, then it is based on the brighness of the star within it's constelation. in your example, α Aquarius would be the brightest star in aquarius. It's "exoplanet" that orbits closest to that star would be "Alpha Aquarius 1".. now, if they are assigning familiar names to these planets, wouldn;t they want a familiar name for the star first? "Alpha Aquarius" is actually called "Sadalmelik".. so that planet would actually be more familiarly named Sadalmelik-1
 
Fred. All planets outside of our solar system should be named Fred. They can have different names, but the name Fred will designate they are outside of our solar system.

Not only is Fred an awesome name, Fred Hoyle came up with the Big Bang name. So we should name all planets Fred.
 
Kharakov said:
Fred. All planets outside of our solar system should be named Fred. They can have different names, but the name Fred will designate they are outside of our solar system.

Not only is Fred an awesome name, Fred Hoyle came up with the Big Bang name. So we should name all planets Fred.
Click to expand...

What in the fred are you talking about? That's fredatic talk.
 
Fred this. I'm going to take this up with Brainy Fred, after I go fred some fredberries.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom