Our Solar System Needs A Name!
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Why settle for a generic solar system?
A few years back, it occurred to me that our Solar System needs a new name. This personal epiphany came on the heels of the landmark discovery in the early '90's that other stars out there have planetary systems like ours. Until then, the Earth-centric, human-centric designation of The Solar System seemed perfectly reasonable. It was the only one, right? Well, not anymore. The number of confirmed planetary star systems has been multiplying rapidly over the last decade, with an astounding 443 exoplanets discovered as of this month!(March)
It has occurred to me that NASA could make a ton of money for future missions by holding a national or international contest to rename our solar system. Such a contest would generate huge public interest, and millions, maybe billions, could be made from charging a small entry fee. Then it occurred to me that some person or persons at NASA had surely thought of this and considered the idea before now. So why no new name for the Solar System? Probably all sorts of bureaucratic and political reasons, all of which I reject.
Then there is the issue of semantics. My internet research revealed that other stars with planets orbiting them are referred to as planetary systems or star systems, thus the name Solar System is reserved for our system. Yet I have noticed the term "sun" is often used to refer to other stars. So doesn't it follow that the term "solar system" is also generic? Which brings me to another point: the sun needs a better name too.
The Copernican System
Ladies and gentlemen, I submit for your approval the Copernican Solar System, aka the Copernican System. The famed sixteenth century astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus made the discovery that the sun is the center of the solar system, rather than the Earth. In Copernicus' time, the Earth was thought to be the center of the universe. His revelation is largely credited with sparking the Scientific Revolution of the Renaissance. It seems entirely fitting that our solar system should bear his name. But what about the sun?
Helios the Sun
Now that the solar system is properly designated as The Copernican System, the sun must have a befitting name as well. It would be logical to dub the sun Copernicus since it is the center of the Copernican System. That would be one way to go. Somehow it seems a bit of a stretch to go from "the sun" to Copernicus. Another logical choice, I believe, would be Helios. Helios was the Greek god of the sun, who drove the chariot of the sun across the sky each day, according to Greek mythology. The term "helio" is already commonly used in reference to the sun. For example, the outer layer of the sun's atmosphere is called the Heliosphere. And Copernicus' theory is referred to as a heliocentric model of the solar system. Either name, Helios or Copernicus, would be a suitable choice, I think. We'll see which sticks.
Luna the Moon
As I write this blog, it occurs to me, for the first time, that the Moon suffers from the same malady of moniker as the sun and the solar system. The term "moon" has traditionally been the common designation for the natural satellites orbiting the various planets in our solar system. As of mid-2009, 336 moons were identified in our solar system, according to Wikipedia. Surely our moon, Earth's one and only, deserves a more distinctive name.
In Roman mythology, Luna was the goddess of the moon. In Greek mythology, the name for the moon goddess was Selene. I am uncertain of the exact pronounciation, although it seems a pretty name. Most English-speaking people are familiar with terms like "lunar eclipse" and "lunar orbit," which reference the moon by its Latin name. For this reason, perhaps Luna is the natural choice. However, there is a potential dilemma. While the name Luna seems special in English, it actually just means "moon" in Italian and Spanish. I'm afraid I haven't quite worked this one out yet.
'Setting' the moon aside for today, I feel quite confident in my new designation of the Copernican Solar System. I am eager to see how it will be received in the blogosphere and beyond.
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Se-le-ne: The accent is on the second "e". The first E is pronounced as in Echo. the other two Es are pronounced as in Easy. Seleeeneee. At least that's how it is pronounced in Greek. And it is teh Greek word for Moon.. :-) VERY nice hub...:-)
LPogue,
Thanks for your interest & input. Yes, I discovered in my research for this hub that El Sol is the Spanish word for the sun, and I think in some other languages. I'm sure you are right that 'solar' comes from 'sol'. I think you could argue that sol is just as generic as sun.
De Greek'
Thanks for commenting & for clarification on Selene. In English, Selene sounds like a pretty woman's name, but does it sound just as plain as moon in Greek?
I-Scribble, what about the earth? Has it yet occurred to you that this is a generic designation as well?
Aya,
Good point. Actually, yes it has occurred to me. But I was tired and wanted to finish so I could go to bed. I haven't given much thought to what would be a good alternative name for Earth. I'm open to ideas. Thanks for dropping by.
We could call it Home or Hic (here), but those are all earth centric names, too. Or we could call it Tertia, signifying its place in the solar system.
Interesting hub. I would vote for Copernican Solar System for reasons you submit but also because I am of Polish descent! As for the sun, with whatever new name you use would we still have 'sun'shine and 'sun'light? :) I think the moon should be named after Galileo because he was the first one to turn a telescope upon it and learn it was not smooth but full of mountains and craters. Whether your renaming campaign works or not, its a thought-provoking hub!
Aya,
I like Tertia, but what are the odds of a new name for Earth catching on? I'm thinking something like a billion to one.
Rose,
I think we would still use generic terms like sunshine. I don't see a problem there. I like your suggestion of the name Galileo for the moon. Better than my suggestions- which were still generic. Glad you enjoyed this hub.
From what I understand there are E.T's that have their own name for our solar system and The Earth as well.
Gaia and Terra are two names I've heard for the Earth.
Heilios is the greek name for the sun
Have you ever wondered where we got names for other systems
like the stars that we see from earth for the zodiac and why they look like all these animals?Could it be that,the old saying in the bible is true
"as above so below"?
Luna for our moon,which has mental illness as it's root meaning is certainly interesting.
In ancient times the sun was called "Horus" or Horizon when it rose above the what has become known as just that,the Horizon.The point where the sun and moon appear and disappear.The moon rising was called Horus rising or Horizon as we call it today and the sun setting also became known as "Sun-SET" Set being known as one of the gods of the underworld ,Horus being another.Sometimes I get the feeling the two are interchangable.Then in Egypt they worshiped many gods because it was profitable for the preists to use the existance of these gods in order to exact money from the people to appease the gods.This continued until pharoah Acknaton put forward the idea of only one god The Sun god.Sol ,which is why he was in disfavor with the people and the preists who believed otherwise.
Great blog and some interesting ideas. Most of our words for moons come from Latin, and thus they are found in French and Spanish (lune and luna), romance languages. And of course English presumably would not be used in other solar systems, making ours at least somewhat exclusive. But let's get creative and explore a bit. We've primarily used Latin and Greek so far, but who says we can't go further.
swk,
You certainly know your ancient Gods and terminology. Terra is just the generic name for "earth" in some other languages & I suspected helios might be the word for sun in Greek, so thanks for clarifying that. I haven't heard Gaia. Where does it come from? You have added much useful info and interesting ideas to the discussion. And I don't doubt that other worlds may have their own names for our world-I just don't have any direct knowledge of it!
Fran L,
Thanks for stopping by. I think you are right-we need to look beyond the Greek & Roman names, because it seems they're all generic terms-just in different languages.
The why call it a solar system question seems to have been answered. A lot of sci-fi writer refer to earth as terra because calling people Terrans sounds alot cooler than Earthers. Technically the name of the moon is... The Moon but the IAU has speculated on officially changing its name to Luna.
There are nomenclature rules for what what planetoids are called, they do not however have to be Greek or Roman. dwarf planets and planets are supposed to be named after gods or suitably significant mythological beings one of the larger dwarf planets discovered so far is named Haumea which is a Polynesian god I believe.
Moons of Jupiter are named after Zeus's (Jupiter is the same deity as Zeus) illegitimate lovers. Fortunately Zeus was a horn dog because Jupiter has a ton of moons.
Similarly asteroids captured at Jupiter's (and possibly other planets) Lagrange points are named after Trojan characters from Homer's Illiad. This is why they are called Trojans.
Dear lord I need to write a hub on this. I hope this helps.
There's actually a good reason there are naming guidelines for astral bodies. The reasons are kind of long and boring but suffice to say they didn't want a bunch of astronomers trying to stab each other in the eye, and they didn't want the first mission to Mars changed to the first mission to the Time Warner is an Awesome Company/Staples Center.
Another interesting factoid. Part of the naming guidelines state that the discoverer of a new planet/dwarf planet/what have you cannot name it after his daughter. Daughter specifically not children.
To a scifi geek, it's called the Terran System - after Terra for Earth. But I know that in millenia to come, it'll be called Cannuckia - after Canada, which will become the official center of the known Universe...
Francine X
Falsor Wing,
You seem quite knowledgable on this subject. You should write your own hub on it. Interesting to hear about the nomenclature rules. Some of the reasons I guessed. I didn't know asteroids were named for Trojan characters, although I think I've heard the term Trojans used. You cracked me up with your comment on Zeus' womanizing. Also interesting to know they've considered changing the Moon to Luna. Do you like my suggestion of Copernicus for the ss? It's not commercial, and hopefully no one would poke anybody in the eye over it!
Personally, I'm rather fond of keeping it Sol... which contrary to Francine Smith's comment, is the name I find most often used in Sci-Fi. Also, sun isn’t technically the generic term for the hot burning thing in the middle of other planetary/star systems. It’s star. Sol and Sun actually are supposed to exclusively refer to our star. In sci-fi though, it just sounds so much cooler to say “he looked up at the twin suns” rather than “he looked up at the twin local stars” so yeah… it is increasingly being misused.
As far as the name of the moon goes, I always thought it was Luna… I hadn’t realized that luna isn’t it’s official name yet, but again, I’d stick with what I’ve always called it, Luna. It doesn’t get used for any other planet’s satellites so exclusivity isn’t an issue and they don’t say “he looked up at the three lunas” in any sci-fi I’ve read so it even evades the issue that’s plaguing sun.
Now with Earth… yeah, that’s been generically used for the ground and terra is latin for land… so again, a generic term. Gaia was a Greek goddess and is also used as the name for the living earth theory. In general, it’s been used whenever someone wanted to portray the earth as a single living entity with Gaia often being the name given to that entity… so in a sense, it already is a proper name for earth. After Gaia the only name I recall that was meant exclusively for earth and was not used to also mean dirt or ground came from the Nordic lore, Midgard.
As a side note, there's already another star named Helios so it wouldn’t only be our star renamed if you chose that one and I would be really surprised to find out that there isn’t already a star named Copernicus. If I had to choose a new name for our star though, I’d probably go really dorky and call it Olympus since well… Olympus is the name for the home of the greek gods, all the planets are named after greek gods, and the current naming system of stars does not distinguish the name of the star from the name of the planetary system, so from a conformist point of view, it just makes the most sense to me.
(sorry I wrote so much... I'm just kind of long winded)
CeoB,
I like your suggestion of Olympus for the solar system. It does make sense to use the home of the gods as the name for a system where all the planets are named after the Greek gods. And thanks for your explanation of the term Gaia for Earth. I still think our local heavenly bodies deserve better names, but I don't expect everyone to agree. Thanks for weighing in.
Great discussion. Personally I think the sun should be called Charlie Brown. I'm always happy when the sun is out after a dreary season--I could hear myself looking up and saying: "You're a good man, Charlie Brown!" The moon is definitely Norma Jean and the earth just feels like "Satchmo" ...and I think to myself, what a wonderful world! =:)
Cute. Thanks for dropping by. Would you believe my sister does a mean imitation of Satchmo singing Hello Dolly. But I digress. Thanks for fanning me.
I would vote for the Copernican System, Luna for the moon (BTW the word luna was the Roman name for the moon, as Selene is the Greek one as DG has pointed out, and the word lunatic is derived from it - people who had mental or emotional problems were supposed in years gone by to have been affected by the moon) and the name Gaia for the earth.
Thanks for an iteresting discussion. Maybe you should pass the Hub and comment on to the IAU for their input?
Love and peace
Tony
tony,
It is gratifying when someone likes my idea of the Copernican system. A surprising number of people just want to keep the names generic. Where are their imaginations? Thanks for the info on the Greek and Roman origins of some of the names. I had forgotten about the origin of the word lunatic. I used to be a mental health counselor, and I can tell you that many mh professionals still feel there is a connection between a full moon and disturbances in human behavior. Thanks for becoming a fan.
There is a coincidental connection between this hub topic and my new hub about the recent Tenn. floods and Climate Change. In the hub, I discuss a book on climate change called Eaarth. The author proposes that the Earth needs a new name because climate change has made it a different place. He suggests several alternate names, including "Eaarth". I think Gaia may have been one of them.
Well I think this blog should go to congress
I guess if you want to talk ancient history, Sumarian tablet in Iraq and Mayan tablet in Mexico contains very accurate depiction of the solar system, that Sun is the center. These tablets are thought to be at least 5000 to 10000 years old, I don't remember exact date at the moment. But I also think these tablets are the only known remaining record of ancient culture, and other older ones are either destroyed or buried in deep sea.
In any case, I thought about naming the solar system. It's kind of like, if you named your pet as "cat" 20 years ago, would you now change it to something little cuter, after all these years? It seems rather silly. But it's also lot of fun to get everyone to get up and cheer for Copernican system. Count me in!
Mystickitty,
Thanks for the ancient hx lesson. No one else has pointed out that other cultures correctly placed the sun in center of the ss. Just another example of the ethnocentricity of U.S. and Western European cultures.
I disagree that it's silly to give the solar system a more specific name for reasons I noted above, but agree that maybe the name Copernican System is too ethnocentric. More food for thought...
Maybe you should suggest some names and let people vote on the name they like best or suggest their own.
How about "The Ten points of interest"?
I'd like to suggest a couple names that are less descriptions...and more akin to other proper names. I'm a former GPS navigation system technician who organized an astronomy and photography club in Japan as a newly-discovered comet - Hyakutake - made its way through our solar system. My father was an engineer at NASA and when I was a child we he took me to see last Apollo mission take-off at Cape Canaveral. On board that mission was the first scientist astronaut - Harrison "Jack" Schmitt who later became a Senator. By chance, as a college kid researching the Congressional Record, I came across his Senatorial efforts to protect civil aviation from the use of force. Suprisingly, his efforts were suppressed despite the soundness and persistence of his appeal. Five years later we saw the tragic result of the Senate's failure to heed Senator Schmitt's warnings with the shootdown of flight 7 by the Soviet military. Could we again fail to see the inevitable warning signs of another attack? The Bojinka plot's exposure and the suprising lack of response to it spelled a disaster in the making. To avert this disaster, I pleaded for authorities to be aware of the bojinka reponse error and to actually stop the plotters by looking in flight schools for them. I came up with a couple of names that I used to help settle myself down during this intense period: Lormo and Querthe. Lormo was an attractive name I made from Lord mode which was a spiritual call to be proactive in stopping misguided religious followers like the Islamic Bojinka plotters. Querthe came about from my search for value and worth. After I came up with the name I found that a Northwest Indian tribe may have used it to to mean 'pride'. Of the two names, I think Lormo would make a fine name our solar system. Now I truly hesitate to be so self-important as to try to name TWO heavenly bodies but behind the names, there is story. So take with it what you will. For our sun, why not "Jack"? Like a jack-of-all-trades, when it comes to multi-tasking - let's face it, there is nobody who does it better than old man sun!
Yeah, it will be something striking. And i love how effective solar panels are becoming, maybe the ultra thin, flexible solar panels. I might passion for solar power to become a better solution. The fact is, all of our energy is a variety of power on the sun, such as oil.
Wow that's a crazy thought. I never even thought about our solar system having a name. It's weird, because as a culture I think we name everything!
I vote for the name olympus or better: Olympia. The home, the center for all greek gods and goddesses/ aka our neighbour planets and when regarding it as a star which is a main source for generating life, the name should probably be Olympia. Thanks for posting this question.
Very good discussion in this hub. The fact that none of these bodies has its own name points up just how cosmocentric (probably I just created that word!) we are, still seeing ourselves as the center of the universe and our version of a star system the only one that matters. Now that other systems and planets are being discovered and named, maybe we on Earth can get with the program and apply actual names in our neck of the cosmic woods.
Considering we as a species have been killing each other and all life for countless centuries on this planet, shouldn't our solar system be named as a warning to all other sentient live forms.
Perhaps something like Enter At Your Own Risk! or perhaps . . . Beware They Got Nukes!
Or They Kill Each Other!
That should give anyone a warning that we don't mind allowing our own citizens to starve to death, so how enlightened can we possible be?
I like the idea of a name but I suspect our neighbors already have a name for us.
Haven't you ever wondered why we as a race haven't been let off our own planet?
somethgblue,
You make thought-provoking points. Not sure what you mean by why haven't we been "let off" our own planet.
We went to the Moon forty years ago, I remember watching it on TV when I was a kid and yet we haven't been back since. Obama in a recent speech talked about a manned mission to Mars and yet we haven't even made any kind of base on our own Moon, c'mon I'm not a rocket scientist, but get real.
We have done nothing significant in space in the last forty years, either we are being lied to or the reason is we are not allowed to.
What better way to observe your subjects than in plain sight, the Moon? It does seem to be off limits unless you have a better explanation . . . consider if you are a sophisticated intelligence living in our solar system and suddenly the human race barely out of the stone age has nuclear weapons and space travel, do ya think just maybe you might want to put a quarantine on that planet until they get some manners?
NASA has been blowing smoke for forty years and since they are basically our only source it is kinda of hard to refute their airbrushed and now photoshopped photos.
Quite simple we are not allowed off this planet.
I think there are a number of possible explanations for our slow progress in space travel in the last generation. Money is certainly an issue. Don't you think it's the reason weve been hitching a ride with the Russians for years instead of launching our own manned satellite? It seems Congress doesn't have the vision or the will to put sufficient resources into an ambitious space program. There is a movement to privatize space travel. The priority of Congress and the White House seems to be military spending and war operations, not space travel. I don't really see how we can afford both, do you? But I will grant you, NASA does seem complicit with the U.S. govt. in covering up UFO sightings.
UFO's are just one piece in the huge scale of the puzzle, but definetely must be considered.
I submit to you that NASA and it's findings is just what the public sees and that the real space program is far more sophisticated than what we have been lead to believe.
Consider the money that has been spent on Black Ops alone and compare it to what NASA's budget is? There are over 150 DUMB's (Deep Underground Military Bases) in the USA alone and they are not cheap!
So don't kid yourself that it's about money, it's about deception. They would love for everyone to believe it is about money, so they don't have to explain the real reason.
I read a book recently called Dark Moon by Bennett & Percy about the equipment supposedly used in the Apollo Missions that was very revealing.
Anyway a book was written in 1980 using only information from the Freedom of Information Act and government employees willing to come forward called Genesis For A New Space Age, it was never published but can be found on Scrbd. and other sites
After reading it you will understand why this book has been censored from the American public and perhaps you will choose not to believe it.
The first step in recognizing the truth is to open your mind to all possibilities not just those that fit your reality.
I will check out Dark Moon and the website you mentioned. I try to be open-minded, yet not gullible.
Have you come up with a suitable name for our Solar System, perhaps you could create a Hub Contest . . . definitely use critical thinking at all times, but as Neitzche said don't settle for the explanation that fits your reality follow the facts no matter where they may lead!
It's a nice idea and the Copernican System has a lot to recommend it, at least it has in the West. I'm not sure it would be accepted in China and the far East though. Good hub.
If our solar system is still in Need of a New Name?
i suggest calling it - The SAGAN System
*And like Saturn... it even has a Nice Ring to iT! :-)
itznix,
I like your suggestion-and your pun. Yes, the ss still needs a name. It will have to be accomplished thru a popular movement, I think. I'm giving serious consideration to Sagan system. A top contender. Thanks.
the above speech is very very informative and interesting and awesome this speech will help u in the exams
New name: * The Sagan System *
New Name: Wandangu System
LPogue 2 years ago
Actually, our sun has a name, Sol. The idea of naming the solar system is interesting, though. I think that is why it is called the 'Sol'ar System. Could be wrong, though. Interesting and thought provoking hub.