Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Dull Names for Newly Discovered Planets?

I read this nice article on the name of the newly discovered planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B. The planet is called Bb, because exoplanets are given designations of small letters attached to the name of the star they orbit.

The author of the article believes this is a dull name. Well, I can see why, but there are even duller names for some celestial bodies important to all of us. Just consider Earth, essentially the same name as earth, the material the ancient humans saw as the main material of the place where we live. Even worse is the name of my favourite celestial body: the Moon. This is the same name as the word moon. True, the word for other moons than the Moon is derived from the proper name of the Moon, but it still feels dull that the Moon is just called the Moon. Sometimes, it is called Luna, but this is out of the ordinary. If compared to the names Earth and Moon, I believe Bb is not dull at all.

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