Uwingu.com has released a comprehensive set of educational talking points about exoplanet naming and has extended its People’s Choice Contest to suggest exoplanet names. This is in response to the International Astronomical Union’s surprise press release of April 12th. Many of you have read and commented on my recent posting about that press release, in which the IAU asserts its sole role in naming celestial objects. In MY opinion, it also very unfairly misinterprets Uwingu’s contest in the worst possible way and oddly enough didn’t bother to mention Uwingu by name. The assertions have unfairly hurt Uwingu and its scientists, based on what many see as a complete misunderstanding of Uwingu’s goals by the IAU.
That caught my attention, and since that time, I’ve been doing quite a bit of investigation into IAU’s claims, carefully reading the IAU’s pages on nomenclature, and talking with the folks at Uwingu and others in the planetary science and discovery community to get a good idea of the issues involved. As it turns out, there are huge disagreements about the extent of IAU’s power and responsibilities, and in particular about the wording of its press release. So, I’ve also written to IAU for some clarifications and am working on a complete analysis of the situation to post here. It’s a fascinating story!
In the meantime, here is Uwingu’s official response to the IAU press release I linked to a few days ago, complete with responses to each of IAU’s talking points. If you’ve been thinking about participating in Uwingu’s “People’s Choice” Name contest, it’s still available. Details are in the press release and on the Uwingu Web page. The contest is a creative way to help fund science research and education in this country — something that is very important to all of us.
UWINGU RESPONSE TO THE IAU AND EXTENSION OF “PEOPLE’S CHOICE”
CONTEST TO CHOOSE A NAME FOR THE PLANET ORBITING ALPHA CENTAURI
The Uwingu’s “People’s Choice” public engagement contest at http://www.uwingu.com to solicit and vote on a popular name for the nearest known planet around another star has been extended a week, and will now end Monday April 22 at midnight US Eastern Daylight Time.
Uwingu’s mission is twofold: To help the public better connect to space and the sky, and to create a new kind of grant fund for space researchers and educators using proceeds from our website. Uwingu’s name means “sky” in Swahili.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) issued a press release on 12 April that significantly mischaracterized Uwingu’s People’s Choice contest and Uwingu itself.
Uwingu affirms the IAU’s right to create naming systems for astronomers. But we know that the IAU has no purview — informal or official — to control popular naming of bodies in the sky or features on them, just as geographers have no purview to control people’s naming of features along hiking trails. People clearly enjoy connecting to the sky and having an input to common-use naming. We will continue to stand up for the public’s rights in this regard, and look forward to raising more grant funds for space researchers and educators this way.
We now take this opportunity to note to the public that, contrary to the IAU press release:
* Informal names for astronomical objects are common (e.g., “The Milky Way”). And in fact, there is no such thing as a unified astronomical naming system, and there never has been. Claims to the contrary are simply incorrect, as an astronomical database search on a representative star, Polaris, reveals. This star is also known to astronomers and the public as the North Star, Alpha Ursae Minoris, HD 8890, HIP 11767, SAO 308, ADS 1477, FK5 907, and over a dozen more designations.
* There are many instances where astronomers name things without going through the IAU’s internal process. There are many of features on Mars, ranging from mountains to individual rocks, with names applied by Mars-mission scientists and never adopted by, or even considered by, the IAU. And Apollo astronauts did not seek IAU permission before naming features at their landing sites or from orbit.
* There are also numerous recent press releases in which astronomical objects were given names by astronomers without any IAU process: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/sn-wilson.html (“Supernova Wilson”), http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/elgordo/ (Galaxy cluster “El Gordo”), http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/galaxy/spiral/2004/04/ (“Black Eye Galaxy”); none drew attention from the IAU.
* Uwingu looks forward to continuing to help the general public to engage creatively in astronomy and to participate in the excitement of the exploration of the universe in which we all live.
In our Alpha Centauri People’s Choice naming contest, anyone can nominate a name to honor a friend, colleague, loved one, or to recognize a place name, an author, an artist, or a sports team, for example. The name getting the highest number of votes will be declared the public’s choice for Uwingu to use as the name for this mysterious new world. Never before has the public been asked to choose its favorite name for a planet.
Name nominations are $4.99; votes cost $0.99. Proceeds from naming and voting fuel new Uwingu grants to fund space education projects affected by sequestration cuts to NASA. Uwingu’s exoplanet naming efforts were recently featured in Time Magazine, at http://science.time.com/2013/03/07/name-your-own-exoplanet-for-4-99/
The namer of the most popular name for Alpha Centauri Bb will receive prizes from Uwingu and will be recognized in a press release about the winning name. Uwingu is also giving prizes for runner-ups, and for all names that reach thresholds of 100, 1,000, and 10,000 votes.