Want to Name an Alien Planet? The NameExoWorlds Contest Is Your Chance

[jimmy olsen]

Do your astronomical duty and get out and vote!

http://www.space.com/29234-alien-planet-name-contest-iau-exoplanets.html?adbid=10152786003476466&adbpl=fb&adbpr=17610706465&cmpid=514630_20150429_44789646&short_code=2w2jq

Want to Name an Alien Planet? The NameExoWorlds Contest Is Your Chance

by Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer   |   April 28, 2015 07:05am ET

Space fans around the globe will soon get a chance to help name some of the galaxy's most famous alien worlds.

The NameExoWorlds contest has kicked off, allowing astronomy clubs and nonprofits to propose names for the stars and planets in 20 different extrasolar systems, officials of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which is organizing the competition along with the citizen-science project Zooniverse, announced Monday (April 27).

Individuals cannot propose names, but they will be able to vote on the names submitted by clubs and nonprofit groups (which must first register with the IAU Directory of World Astronomy). These organizations are permitted to propose names for only one alien system — the host star and its planet(s) — along with a justification for the potential monikers. [10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life]

Space fans around the globe will soon get a chance to help name some of the galaxy's most famous alien worlds.

The NameExoWorlds contest has kicked off, allowing astronomy clubs and nonprofits to propose names for the stars and planets in 20 different extrasolar systems, officials of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which is organizing the competition along with the citizen-science project Zooniverse, announced Monday (April 27).

Individuals cannot propose names, but they will be able to vote on the names submitted by clubs and nonprofit groups (which must first register with the IAU Directory of World Astronomy). These organizations are permitted to propose names for only one alien system — the host star and its planet(s) — along with a justification for the potential monikers. [10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life]

Submissions are due by June 15, after which the public will be asked to vote on the proposed names. The current plan calls for the final results to be announced during the IAU's 29th General Assembly in Honolulu, which runs from Aug. 3 through Aug. 14 of this year, IAU officials said.

To learn more about the contest, check out the NameExoWorlds site: http://www.nameexoworlds.org

The 20 extrasolar systems include 51 Pegasi, which harbors the first alien world ever discovered orbiting a sunlike star (in 1995), and Fomalhaut, which was one of the first exoplanets ever to be imaged directly (though there is currently some controversy about whether or not the "planet" is really just the rocky remnants of a massive collision).

The 20 systems contain 32 known planets. Five of the host stars already have popular, common names, so they're off-limits to the NameExoWorlds contest, which therefore offers the opportunity to give appellations to a total of 47 objects (planets plus stars).

The IAU assigns "official" names to celestial bodies and their features. The organization is perhaps best known to laypeople for demoting Pluto from a "true" planet to the newly created category of "dwarf planet" in 2006, a decision that remains controversial to this day.

The first exoplanets were discovered orbiting a pulsar — a rapidly spinning, superdense stellar corpse — in 1992. Since then, scientists have spotted nearly 2,000 more, with thousands of additional planet candidates awaiting confirmation by follow-up observations and analysis.

But those numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. Work by NASA's Kepler space telescope suggests that every star in the Milky Way hosts at least one planet on average, meaning our galaxy is probably home to more than 100 billion alien worlds.

[The Brain]

ExoWorlds? Do these planets have exoskeletons? Exotic dancers?

[11B4V]

Fart

[Eddie Teach]

I don't think we should name planets until we know what they are like.

[Valmy]

We should continue to name them all after pagan Gods. Once we go through all real life mythologies we should move on to fantasy ones. Forgotten Realms alone could name every planet in a few star clusters.

[jimmy olsen]

I don't think we should name planets until we know what they are like.

I kind of agree with you. A lot of worlds are going to get names from Sci-Fi series that are gonna end up looking nothing like their namesakes.

[Admiral Yi]

Alien planets?  What other kind is there?

[jimmy olsen]

Alien planets?  What other kind is there?

The ones in the Solar System.

[Caliga]

Even Earth can be an alien planet, Tim.  Come on, didn't you see "Alien From L.A." or "Alien Nation"?

[Josquius]

Kingsworld

[Razgovory]

Alien planets?  What other kind is there?

Naturalized citizen planets.

[MadImmortalMan]

I look forward to the Ron Paul system with planets Rand, Rothbard and gas giant Colbert.