Lovers of Teruel, Cervantes and other planets
Sunday, November 10, 2019 @ 8:50 PM
ASTRONOMERS need a name for a giant star similar to our sun and the huge gaseous planet which orbits it – so they have asked the public to help out.
Voters from each of the countries involved with the International Astronomical Union (IAU) are urged to choose one of 12 pairs of names, the shortlist of the most popular from every nation will be drawn up and the overall world winner announced in mid-December.
If you're in Spain, you have until Tuesday, November 12 to cast your vote on the website Name ExoPlanets, choosing from the list of pairs devised by the Canarian Astrophysics Institute's Dr Ricardo Dorda.
“Given how close the star and the planet are, and yet their absence of contact, the idea is to name them after a famous pair from history who never got together,” the researcher says.
Ideas come from nature, ancient civilisation, historical events, mythology, legends and literature – and at the moment, the most popular seems to be the names of the Lovers of Teruel, Isabel and Diego, whose 'closeness without touching' would make them ideal candidates.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com