Unabashed

I would like to propose to petition the IAU to officially name our Sun, our Moon and our Earth (Note that I didn’t say change the name or rename, because they have never been named). But what would be the best names for them? What would you call our Earth, a planet more blue and green than the brown which the name Earth conjures. And what about our lunar satellite, or the center of our solar system, the Sun? What better names could we come up with?

Why would I propose such a thing? Well…
Mankind is on the cusp of a new age of discovery. There are over a hundred extra-solar planets now identified by the IAU, and more are being discovered. It’s estimated that there are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone, and as for planets, nobody knows. But as we are discovering and exploring and finding new things, the possibility always exists that finally, we may discover life elsewhere. Sure, this is something that’s far in the future most likely, unless they come to us first, but the Universe is some 14 billion years old, and earth has been around for about a third of that, and it’s possible that we are the most advanced life in the Universe. Possible but not likely, because of infinite ifs, such as: if another sun formed with habitable planets around it when the Universe was only ten billion years old, then there could be another species out there in the Great Expanse that is roughly 5 billion years more advanced than us. Which would make us a bunch of stupids.

But what if we do find life elsewhere eventually? And what if, say, a citizen of this new planet wants to write me a letter? What would my address be?

Matt Mitchell
Montevallo, Alabama, United States of America, Earth, Sun, Milky Way

And my problem with this is the unremarkable nature of the names with which we identify our home place in the Universe. When referring to the Universe, using the term as a name with singularity is fine, as this is the only universe we know of. But when referring to our sun (by name the Sun), or our moon (by name the Moon), or even our planet (by name Earth, although even that name might as well have been Planet for all its blandness. It is better than Sun or Moon, though), and using terms with which we describe (or might one day describe) billions of other bodies in the Universe, we make ourselves look unimaginative and as bland as the names we’ve allowed to be assigned to our home star. We have names for every other planet and moon in the solar system, and even comets and other bodies and elements of the solar system, and yet we’ve left the sun, moon and our own home planet practically nameless, only classified. Sure, there are Earthly places with similar naming structures: Mountain, ND, Peninsula, OH and Plains, PA to name a few just here in the USA, but those are names that were chosen, not names that became habitual and just left alone. Even the Milky Way is a derivative of the Latin word meaning “The Galaxy.” But at least it sounds original.

So, there it is. I’d love to hear some suggestions from anyone on Earth. Am I wrong? Earth is a name, after all, right? Even if it is unimaginative, it’s a name that correctly identifies our location in the solar system. Some people would like to call the Sun Sol or the Moon Luna, but as I understand it that’s just a SciFic fanboy sect.

written by Matt Mitchell