Comments on Mike Brown's Planets: Homeward bound

Hi, Mike :) I went back to your post, "Moon Shado...

2009-06-05T16:22:38.761-07:00

Hi, Mike :)

I went back to your post, "Moon Shadows Galore" and went from there to the "Mutual Events of Haumea and Namaka" :

http://web.gps.caltech.edu/%7Embrown/2003EL61/mutual/

and I can see that the observation from the Canary Islands will give a bit of a "stereoscopic" approach to this latest set of data, presuming you also got good data from India and Kazhakstan (or whateverStan [?]).

How's your Spanish? Mine's terrible. It seems likely you could find somebody local to run that...

If it encourages you, rest assured there is at least one fan of your blog gripping the edge of his seat in anticipation of the results at Haumea. :*/

As far as extrasolar names, so far the only good one I can think of is Lilliput and Brobdinag from Gulliver's Travels, this would be for an Earthlike moon of a giant planet. Kepler should be able to see this, if it exists.

I suppose that if I were to lobby in favor of using names from science fiction, that would mean the only way I could ever name an extrasolar planet would be to write Science Fiction!

:)

-Mike Emmert

I suspect the reason for keeping the exo-planets n...

2009-06-04T13:33:16.651-07:00

I suspect the reason for keeping the exo-planets nameless is because there could be thousands of them known in the near future and they are running out of mythological names - if this is the case I've got an idea - why not do as the writers do, make up cool names from scratch - examples from writers of novels and games include: Tatooine (Star Wars), and Veldin (Ratchet and Clank). Writers always seem to find great planet names, why not honor this tendency in the naming of exoplanets, sure beats those license plate numbers - and besides, the public would eat it up, especially if they are allowed to participate in the naming. Now if only the IAU would approve.

Perhaps because stars seldom get names, very littl...

2009-06-03T23:15:16.925-07:00

Perhaps because stars seldom get names, very little is known about the orbits of most of these planets, and little is known about the properties of the exo-planets. Of course very little is also known about the dwarf planets. I suspect on a psychological level there is the seeing is believing since most of the exo-planets are inferred vs photographed. I also suspect that they do not want to name an object without knowing if it is more of a Super Earth candidate or a run-of-the-mill Neptune. Keep in mind that I don't know if any of this is true, it is just my best wild guess.

No offense taken... I don't know why the extra so...

2009-06-03T16:21:17.235-07:00

No offense taken...

I don't know why the extra solar guys don't get names. Seems like a good idea to me. It's more interesting than HD209457A, for sure.

Umm. That sounded a bit harsh on your chosen field...

2009-06-03T03:11:23.300-07:00

Umm. That sounded a bit harsh on your chosen field. Can I append a 'smiley'?

:)

Perhaps you can tell me: Why do flying ice-blocks...

2009-06-03T03:10:17.119-07:00

Perhaps you can tell me:
Why do flying ice-blocks around the orbit of Pluto get names, yet the magnificent planets we've found orbiting other stars get boring catalogue numbers with a 'b' or 'c' appended?