Planet George (nearly)

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Hi,

While reading a book on cosmology by Neil Tyson, I learned that the discoverer of Uranus, Sir William Herschel, wanted to name it after his patron, King George III.

So as the book says, we might have been posting here about our observations of Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and George.

Now we have for years had bad jokes about seeing the ring around Uranus, but it might have been different, we could have been reporting on sightings of George's ring instead

Actually John Flamsteed saw the planet first, but he thought it was a star and named it 34 Tauri.

GeoffW1

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Just as well they didn't name it both, or we would be seeing the ring around George's Anu. . . ummm . . well, you get the point

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

I was just thinking about this thread and its subject.

We know who named the Planets, it is written in History.

But who named Earth 'Earth'?

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Acknowledgements to Okiscopey, whose recent post on this subject I should have noticed before rushing to the keyboard

I tell you what, it is damned hard to find an astronomical topic which has not been mentioned here sometime

What about flat tyres on the hand trolley, I know a bit about that

GeoffW1

[CoombellKid]

I'm kinda glad they didn't end up calling it George, just doesn't have that ring
to it. Uranus is much better : )

regards,CS

[Kal (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by ballaratdragons

I was just thinking about this thread and its subject.

We know who named the Planets, it is written in History.

But who named Earth 'Earth'?

Interesting question I have never thought about myself. I found this related to the question:

...Earth is Old English and German in origin, related to the Old Saxon 'ertha', the Dutch 'aerde', and the German 'erda'...it seems likely that people used Earth to mean 'land' and then it was the natural thing to refer to all the land and the planet.

[okiscopey (Mike)]

Originally Posted by GeoffW1

Acknowledgements to Okiscopey, whose recent post on this subject I should have noticed before rushing to the keyboard
I tell you what, it is damned hard to find an astronomical topic which has not been mentioned here sometime

Took me a while to remember what post that was. I think this is it:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=18201
'Twas all extracted from Wikipedia, so the original author (whoever it was) should have the acknowledgement.

You're right though, it is hard to think of new stuff, which is probably why IIS is such an amazingly useful resource.