• Question: How did the planets get their names?

    Asked by to Sarah, Sam, Roberto, Nate, Nat on 18 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Natasha Stephen

      Natasha Stephen answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      The planets were named by the people that first observed them. A lot of the early planets were named after the Roman gods as early scientists associated heavily with these deities. E.g. Mars was named after the Roman god of war, Venus after the Roman goddess of love and beauty, Saturn the Roman god of agriculture…

      New planets outside our solar system, Exoplanets, are still being discovered today and these are named in a very different way. They are named after their host star, as all planets orbit their own sun/star, and given a astronomical number to identify them. E.g. Gilese 581g or Kepler 22-b.

    • Photo: Sarah Casewell

      Sarah Casewell answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      Some of the moons in the solar system have really interesting names as well. Uranus’s moons are all named after characters from Shakespeare. Some asteroids have really interesting names as well – quite a lot are named after people – I think there is a Hawking, and there is definitely a moomintroll!

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