1253: Exoplanet Names
| Exoplanet Names |
 Title text: If you have any ideas, I hear you can send them to [email protected]. |
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: 1253: Exoplanet Names If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
On the 14th of August, the International Astronomical Union issued a document about public naming of astronomical objects. It stated, "IAU fully supports the involvement of the general public, whether directly or through an independent organised vote, in the naming of planetary satellites, newly discovered planets, and their host stars.". It also contained, amongst other things, guidelines that suggested names should meet. These include stipulations such as "16 characters or less", "preferably one word", being "pronounceable (in as many languages as possible)", "not too similar to an existing name of an astronomical object", avoiding commercial names, and being "respectful of intellectual property". If we go down the list, we can see that many of Randall's suggestions do indeed violate the guidelines. Which is probably part of the joke.
And yes, the document also states that suggestions may be sent to the email mentioned in the title text.
| Star | Planet | Suggested Name | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gliese 667 C | b | Space Planet | A very unoriginal name: Every planet is in space. |
| c | PILF | Pun of MILF, i.e. Planet I'd Like to Fuck. Planet c is a relatively hot planet, within the habitable zone. | |
| d | A Star | "A Star" is obviously a bad name for a planet; "A Star" is also the name of a path-finding algorithm. | |
| e | e'); DROP TABLE PLANETS;-- | A reference to SQL injection, riffing off of comic 327, which featured a boy named Robert'); DROP TABLE students;--. The idea here is that the IAU would enter the name into their system and promptly lose all of their data pertaining to planets. Note that Planet e is located in the habitable zone of the star system.
| |
| f | Blogosphere | Weird blog-related terms are a recurring theme in xkcd. See, for instance, comic 181. | |
| g | Blogodrome | ||
| h | Earth | ||
| Tau Ceti | b | Sid Meier's Tau Ceti B | This refers to the game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. |
| c | Giant Dog Planet | ||
| d | Tiny Dog Planet | ||
| e | Phil Plainet | Phil Plait, a.k.a. The Bad Astronomer. | |
| f | Unicode Snowman | The Unicode character ☃ is a reference to the planet's estimated surface temperature of -40°C. But this name would be pronounced differently in different languages. | |
| Gliese 832 | b | Asshole Jupiter | |
| Gliese 581 | b | Waist-deep Cats | |
| c | Planet #14 | One of the earlier discoveries. Reported to be the first potentially Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of its star, thought that is in doubt now. | |
| d | Ballderaan | A crude pun on the planet Alderaan from the Star Wars universe. | |
| e | Eternia Prime | A reference to the main planet of Masters of the Universe. | |
| f | Taupe Mars | A reference to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars). | |
| g | Jelly Filled Planet | Possibly a reference to the conjecture that this tidally locked planet has an isolated habitable zone under the substellar point, akin to the pocket of jelly in a jelly doughnut. | |
| Epsilon Eridani | b | Skydot | |
| c | Laser Noises | ||
| Gliese 176 | b | Pandora | The fictional moon in James Cameron's Avatar. Also the Planet used in Borderlands Games. |
| c | Pantera | ||
| Kepler-61 | b | Goldenpalace.com | A Gambling Site. |
| ... | |||
| Upsilon Andromedae | c | Stampy | The name of the elephant from the Simpsons episode, "Bart Gets an Elephant". |
| d | Moonchild | ||
| e | Ham Sphere | HamSphere is a Ham Radio simulator program. | |
| HD 20794 | b | Cosmic Sands | A pun on the name of the font Comic Sans. (See also: 590: Papyrus.) |
| c | Legoland | Legoland is a chain of Theme Parks owned by the Lego Group and run by British company Merlin Entertainments. | |
| d | Planet with Arms | A reference to the early covers of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? | |
| HD 85512 | b | Lax Morality | |
| HD 40307 | b | Good Planet | |
| c | ProblemLand | ||
| d | Slickle | ||
| e | Spare Parts | ||
| f | New Jersey VI | ||
| g | How Do I Join the IAU | This implies that the user "got lost" on the IAU website and thought that the "planet name suggestion" input was for general queries. | |
| Gliese 163 | b | Neil Tyson's Mustache | |
| c | [email protected] | ||
| d | Hair-Covered Planet | A reference to a well-known theorem of topology. | |
| Pi Mensae | b | Moon Holder | |
| HD 189733 | b | Permadeath | |
| Kepler-22 | b | Blue Ivy | Blue Ivy Carter, daughter of musicians Beyoncé and Jay-Z. |
| Kepler-3284 | b | Blainsley | |
| Kepler-3255 | b | Unicorn Thresher | |
| Kepler-2418 | b | Spherical Discworld | A creation of British author Sir Terry Pratchett, The Discworld is the fictional setting for his Discworld series of books and comprises of a large disc supported by four elephants themselves standing on top of a turtle flying through space. |
| Kepler-1686 | b | Emergency Backup Earth | This planet has an Earth Similarity Index of 0.89, making it the most habitable Kepler Object of Interest to date. |
| Kepler-3010 | b | Feeeoooooooop | |
| Kepler-4742 | b | Liz | |
Transcript
- August 2013:
- The International Astronomical Union decides to start naming exoplanets, and—for the first time ever—asks for suggestions from the general public.
- They immediately regret this decision.
- Cueball: Can't you filter out the worst ones?
- The rightmost person: This is after the filter!
add a comment! ⋅ add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ 
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This comic is referenced in 1555: Exoplanet Names 2 (https://xkcd.com/1555/). 199.27.133.177 04:54, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
One of the planets is similar to the child in Exploits of a Mom (http://xkcd.com/327/) Robert Drop Tables 90.200.204.77 12:12, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, they've seemed to have learned to sanitize their data inputs or just stick to parameters. 69.14.148.254 12:33, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Hair covered planet might be a reference to the book The Carpet Makers 41.221.193.211 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
The Blogosphere and Blogodrome planets are cited as synonyms of "blog." I believe this is an error, in that blogosphere is synonymous with "the collection of all posted communication." I would change it myself, but I don't feel like I'm sufficiently expert to state with conviction. ~Anthingy 76.105.133.220 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
I'm still missing the New Netherlands... Lorenz 142.244.63.246 15:34, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Along with no New Netherlands, I'm also disappointed to see Planet #14 but no Planet 9 from Outer Space. Ccurtis (talk) 16:04, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
- I'm sure my explain does cover this very well.--Dgbrt (talk) 23:04, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
- I don't understand your comment here. I was hoping for a reference to Plan 9 From Outer Space, arguably one of the worst movies ever made and inspiration for the successor Unix operating system, Plan 9. Ccurtis (talk) 14:09, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
If memory serves, Stampy is the name of Bart Simpson's elephant. 99.108.140.97 17:59, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
A* ("a star") is also a pathfinding algorithm taught in introductory Artificial Intelligence classes. I don't see the connection to the planet yet. Lastorset (talk) 22:19, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
I just wonder where New Jerseys II through V are .... JamesCurran (talk) 03:24, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Skydot could as easily be equivalent to the "Pale blue dot" that is Earth, from afar. New Jersey VI reminds me of the "New (New New New New .. New) New York" as visited in Doctor Who. [email protected] is either another bad input (as in "How Do I Join the IAU") or something more insidious. Moon Holder also reminds me of "Moon Watcher" from the (book of, at least) 2001: a Space Odyssey. Blainsley sounds to me like one of those portmanteau-names applied to a couple ("Blair-and-Ainsley"?). Unicorn Thresher could either be a random word string (I'd not have been surprisedto have seen "Correct Horse battery Staple" in the list) or perhaps something to do with the Invisible Pink Unicorn. Liz sounds like someone trying to get a planet named after their girlfriend or daughter or perhaps mother. 178.104.103.140 11:39, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
- Anyone want an exoplanet named xkcd? 173.14.129.9 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
I was personally expecting a planet named "Gallifrey" or "Too expensive to get there, who cares?" 170.215.90.160 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Maybe New Jersey VI is a reference to the Spaceship New Jersey from Bruce Covill's young adult "My Teacher Is An Alien" series? -Jed 70.208.76.161 00:47, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
I find it very meta that the line in the table explaining Cosmic Sands is formatted in Comic Sans, except for the reference to the Papyrus comic, which is written in Papyrus. I refer anyone interested to the discussion there about the propriety of that kind of self-referential cleverness, and I recognize that it sort of undermines the purpose of a wiki to do things therein that themselves require explanation... but I kinda like it. --Benny 68.199.58.41 15:50, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
How Do I Join the IAU - instead of a lost user it very much resembles whinning of noobs in forums or in chat - "How Do I Get An Op?", "Please Mail It To Me" etc. Ballderaan might be a pun (if it's not actually there) on the Space Balls movie. --Ed 217.31.207.1 14:04, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
permadeath might also be a play on permafrost. Peter (talk) 17:01, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
Is Moonchild not an Aleister Crowley reference? 91.45.17.43 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
I think, that [email protected] is a pun for the fact, that you usaually don't get any help writing to that address or that it is usually hard to communicate with google 87.168.177.1 12:32, 4 October 2013 (UTC) Christian
Since computer scientists often start at zero instead of one when numbering things, the 15th in the list would be Planet #14 W3steve (talk) 23:25, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
Planet With Arms might also refer to the Birds With Arms thing on Reddit, where people humorously photoshop arms onto the bird pictures. 108.162.246.5 21:10, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
I think the inclusion of Blue Ivy is a swipe at Beyonce and Jay-Z trademarking their daughter's name. Presumably, as well as being two words, it would be ineligible as a planet name for violating the guidelines on "avoiding commercial names, and being 'respectful of intellectual property'". 108.162.216.46 15:48, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
"A star" is a planet not a star. I thought that was the joke. 173.245.50.162 06:46, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
With recent developments in British ocean research, should we add a reference to "Boaty McBoatface"? Like M.Splashy Pants and the Mountain Dew flavour, this led the polls when the parent organization put the name of their cutting-edge research vessel to internet vote.--108.162.242.134 22:18, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
[email protected] seems like a Douglas Adams reference, where he describes the complaints department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation takes up several planets. Here's the quote. Yissachar1498 (talk) 10:59, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
you all missed the point of "a star"
it suggests that the planet
is a star
you got nerdsniped and not one of you noticed 172.68.143.82 20:50, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
Isn't Ballderaan just an anagram of Aldebaran? 162.158.92.28 17:29, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
- "Aldebaran" has only one "l", but close. Nitpicking (talk) 05:08, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
I had assumed that "asshole Jupiter" was a reference to "hot Jupiter", the term for exoplanet gas giants with orbital periods of less than 10 days. Nitpicking (talk) 05:08, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
