NAME AN EXOPLANET AND ITS STAR - NameExoWorlds: The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is inviting astronomy clubs and non-profit organizations to submit the proposed names. Votes will be cast by the public from across the world through the web platform NameExoWorlds. This platform is under development by the IAU in association with Zooniverse. The intention is that millions of people worldwide will be able to take part in the vote. Once the votes are counted, the winning names will be officially sanctioned by the IAU, allowing them to be used freely in parallel with the existing scientific nomenclature, with due credit to the clubs or organizations that proposed them. People have been naming celestial objects for millennia, long before any scientific system of names ever existed. Even today, almost every civilization and culture uses common names to describe the stars and planets visible to the naked eye, as well as their apparent distribution on the sky — constellations, asterisms, etc. When the IAU was created in 1919, professional astronomers delegated the task of giving official scientific names to newly discovered celestial objects to it. In parallel, throughout its history, the IAU has supported the contribution of the general public in naming various solar system objects. The NameExoWorlds contest aims at crowdsourcing the process by which public names will be given to a large sample of well-studied, confirmed exoplanets and their host stars, referred to as exoworlds. The NameExoWorlds vote is conceived as a global, cross-cultural, educational, and above all ambitious and challenging contest, both for the IAU-Zooniverse partnership, and for the public. A list of 305 well-characterized exoplanets, discovered prior to 31 December 2008 [3], has been selected for naming and is being published today on the NameExoWorlds.org website. These exoplanets belong to 260 exoplanetary systems comprising one to five members, in addition to their host star. Learn more about the process and timeline for this project at: earthsky.org/space/astronomers-invite-worldwide-public-to-help-name-exoplanets-and-their-stars
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 07:09:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015