Ten years ago, an exoplanet circling red gigant HD 32518 in the constellation Camelopardalis (giraffe) was discovered by German astronomers. Now they decided to let their countrymen and -women vote on the names. All schools, kindergartens and astronomical societies in the country were asked for suggestions. An astronomical jury picked 5 pairs of names and those are now up for voting.
The official vote is only for Germans or pupils of German schools abroad but I thought it might be fun to let everyone vote here inofficially and then see whether the majority of German voters agrees with you.
The original poll can be found here: https://exoplanet-benennen.de/
The 5 options are:
The official poll started today and runs until Nov 14th. I'll post the result here as soon as it is published.
Btw, if you have sharp eyes and happen to live in a rather dark area, the star is just visible without any aid. Not-so-eagle-eyed folks can see it with binoculars.
[note to mods: this is admittedly basically an astronomical topic, but as it's a fun poll I thought it might fit better into Misc, being too trivial for the science forum. Feel free to move the thread, though, if you disagree]
The official vote is only for Germans or pupils of German schools abroad but I thought it might be fun to let everyone vote here inofficially and then see whether the majority of German voters agrees with you.
The original poll can be found here: https://exoplanet-benennen.de/
The 5 options are:
- planet Reticulata / star Peralta: both are the scientific names for giraffe species (reticulated giraffe and West African giraffe)
- planet Neri / star Mago: Mago is an Ethiopian national park, particularly for the protection of giraffes. Neri is the main river in said national park.
- planet Rosenrot / star Schneeweißchen: rose-red (Rosenrot) and snow-white (Schneeweißchen) are two sisters from a popular German fairy tale.
- planet Pioneer / star Voyager: A kudos to the NASA-probes. VOY 1 - the eldest sister of V'ger - is actually on a course for constellation giraffe. Hopefully without molesting any star ships en route.
- planet Gulliver / star Brobdingnag: this pair was inspired by the fact that the exoplanet's star is a red gigant. For those who never read Gulliver's travels: read all about Brobdingnag here
The official poll started today and runs until Nov 14th. I'll post the result here as soon as it is published.
Btw, if you have sharp eyes and happen to live in a rather dark area, the star is just visible without any aid. Not-so-eagle-eyed folks can see it with binoculars.
[note to mods: this is admittedly basically an astronomical topic, but as it's a fun poll I thought it might fit better into Misc, being too trivial for the science forum. Feel free to move the thread, though, if you disagree]
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