Naming Extrasolar Planets

[Enchilada]

I was reading the daily arvix articles, and came across the following article entitled "Naming the extrasolar planets" written by W. Lyra.

Here is an interesting and very readable article that discusses possible methods of naming all these new extra planet discoveries.

There is, however, a very interesting discussion on the Southern Constellations on page 4, which is very informative. This is followed (page 6) gives a great summary of the naming and history of the all 88 constellations — relating to a possible naming system of these distant planets.

There is also a Table at the end, listing all the known extrasolar planets by constellation — including what they should be named — an interesting list indeed. (pg.22-28)

Clearly there are moves afoot that the next I.A.U. General Assembly Meeting in 2012 in Beijing in China. to again discuss this issue, and probably under IAU Commission 3. According to an article in SPACE.com. Why Planets Will Never Be Defined 21 November 2006) it will never happen. quoting;

"The controversial planet-definition resolution, passed Aug. 24 in a vote of just 424 IAU members, will not stand as worded. Some 300 astronomers have pledged not to use it, and many others say it must be redone to eliminate contradictions. It will be reworked, at the least, and possibly overturned at the 2009 IAU General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil."
(…and you though demoting Pluto was a problem!!

I really prefer giving the name of the star and a Roman numeral, I.e Altair IV (the planet in the classic sci-fi movie "Forbidden Planet") or Altair 7 (in the more recent movie "Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer") *

In my personal opinion, I think they are going to run out of names pretty quickly.

What does IIS'ers think of this proposal?

What would amateurs do?

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Note 1 :Also reminds me of the naming of planets in Star Trek Original Series (TOS) or even Battlestar Galactica (BG).

Note 2. Interestingly, Circinus, Corona Australis, Equuleus, Leo Minor and Scutum have know known extra solar planets.

[renormalised (Carl)]

It's a minefield, trying to figure out how to name planets. Some will undoubtedly get common names (51PegB was given the unofficial name "Bellerophon", after the Greek hero), but I think the best way to name them is use the convention they use in Star Trek...call a planet, let say Rigel 8 (or VIII) if it's the 8th planet orbiting Rigel. Or, if it's a star without a proper name, say HD7099B etc etc. You can see the problems cropping up here with naming planets.

Probably the best way is to ask the inhabitants of the system what they call it...when we get to meet them

Then we can call 40Eridani A III...Vulcan

[Enchilada]

Thinking about it — while doing the washing up mind you — I thought that one way would be to name them after, worldwide cities, towns, suburbs, etc, using the latitude corresponding to the declination of the star.

To be pedantic, and even assign, if possible, the longitude corresponding to the Right Ascension. A simple computer program could pick the name of the nearest place automatically, then follow the planets in the system by its Roman Numeral!

Those nearest the south pole, where there are not many places, could have classical towns placed in ancient history that no longer exist!

That would cover about two million places or so - enough for many years.

Just an idea.

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

When we go there the first person off the ship or the loudest one there can have a look around and say the first thing that comes to mind and let that be the name should be verrrrrrrrrrry Interesting.

[Jen]

Originally Posted by supernova1965

When we go there the first person off the ship or the loudest one there can have a look around and say the first thing that comes to mind and let that be the name should be verrrrrrrrrrry Interesting.

sounds like a good idea to me

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by supernova1965

When we go there the first person off the ship or the loudest one there can have a look around and say the first thing that comes to mind and let that be the name should be verrrrrrrrrrry Interesting.

In that case, there'll be millions of planets named !@#$*@!!

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

Or "WHY THE BLOODY HELL DID I COME HERE" Bit long winded but you take what you get I suppose.

[rally]

You can't name them according to their orbital position because we cant detect them all - either due to size, star brightness, orbital period and orbital inclination etc - that would mean their order would keep changing till there was nothing left to discover !!!

You can only give them a meaningful numerical indicator in terms of discovery date ranking because we are going to keep discovering these objects for the next million years.

It makes good sense to name them after their star - at least we will know where to look for them.

[ngcles]

Hi Warren,

Originally Posted by supernova1965

Or "WHY THE BLOODY HELL DID I COME HERE" Bit long winded but you take what you get I suppose.

No, you're talking about a planet that's already been named -- it's called "NowWhat". You can read all about it in the Hitch Hiker's Gude to the Galaxy".

You can read about it here:

Wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NowWhat#NowWhat

but the pertinent part extracted from Wiki:

NowWhat is a planet in the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash formerly known as the Hitchhiker's Guide universe. NowWhat can be found in place of planet Earth at an unlikely position along the probability axis, in a parallel universe.

According to the novel Mostly Harmless, "the planet of NowWhat had been named after the opening words of the first settlers to arrive there after struggling across light-years of space to reach the furthest unexplored outreaches of the Galaxy. The main town was called OhWell."

The only export of NowWhat is the NowWhattian boghog skin, which no one in their right minds would want to buy, and the export trade only manages to survive because of the significant number of people in the Galaxy who aren't.

The NowWhattian boghog is the only surviving native animal of NowWhat, all others having died of despair, and, failing to be completely inedible, is the primary source of food for the settlers on NowWhat. The language of the boghogs consists of biting each other very hard on the thigh and thus was never learned by anybody else.

Travelers that arrive on NowWhat are greeted by a picture of the president smiling a ghastly smile; the picture was taken after he shot himself, and the missing corner of his face has been drawn in crayon. No one wants to be the president of NowWhat. Everyone there pursues one ambition: to leave.

Arthur Dent arrives on NowWhat in search of Earth. After turning the map upside down and adjusting for different sea levels, he discovers that the shapes of the continents of NowWhat resemble those of the planet Earth. For lack of any other similarity Arthur Dent concludes that it is the right planet but the wrong universe and leaves again.

But more seriously, I thnk the convention they will go for in the end will be Roman numerals in the order of discovery. A, B & C. Aa Ba, Bc etc etc are used more commonly for stars in a multiple system. Then we can have something like Xi Scorpii B IV.

Common names ... don't get me started on common names for celestial objects planets or otherwise ...


Best,

Les D

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

Yes you have hit it on the head what was I thinking much too long.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

If we name it, alien life forms that live on it may get offended