Trek Planet Names

[Warrick]

Good day all..

I always wondered what the numeric values represented at the end of Planet names. Does anyone know the real reason for this in either fiction or non-fiction? thanks in advance.

Here's a Star Trek planet name list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek_planets_(A–B)

Example
Acamar III – Homeworld of the humanoid Acamarians, who finally reunited the marauding Gatherers into their world's mainstream with Capt. Picard's help in 2366.[2]

 

[Mysterion]

In your example above I believe that would refer to the third planet out from the star Acamar. Likewise you could refer to Earth as Sol III, or Mars as Sol IV.

 

[Warrick]

In your example above I believe that would refer to the third planet out from the star Acamar. Likewise you could refer to Earth as Sol III, or Mars as Sol IV.

Ok, that's sorta what I thought but never knew the real reason for it. I assumed it was an easier way to reference planets in a solar system.

In this case (above) Acamar III is referencing the 3rd planet from the sun, I assume the star/sun is called Acamar?

thanks for educating me on it!

 

[Warrick]

edit: "I assumed it was an easier way to reference planets in a solar system."
I meant .. to reference stars in a cluster or area of space or just clusters (groups) of objects in an area, but what you said makes more sense.

 

[Timo]

Trek planet and star names of course contain numbers in other places as well: there's even a place called 892 IV, the pseudo-Roman planet from "Bread and Circuses". We may argue this follows the general rule, and the star is named 892 (the astronomer must have been bored stiff that day).

Then there are planets named M-113, though. Probably not part of the general pattern, that is, the name of the local star isn't part of that planet name at all. Which is sorta odd, because who would bother to give a planet a separate name but then not bother to give it a proper name, instead choosing a catalogue number of some sort? Perhaps this is part of a slightly different pattern - of naming the sole planet in a system after the star, without adding "I" to that name...

The astronomers of our reality have made a grievous error in deciding to assing lowercase letters, not Roman numerals, as the identifiers of planets. Thus Earth is Sol c rather than Sol III.

Except this is not exactly how it works: the astronomers of today have absolutely no idea if the planet they call, say, Proxima Centauri b really is the second planet in that system. It is merely the second thing they found in that system (the star Proxima Centauri is the "a" by default), and it may befall a future starship crew to decide that the proper name for the planet is in fact Proxima Centauri IV since they can spot three other rocks orbiting further inward.

In that system, Earth in fact might be Sol b, for being the first-ever Sol planet that humans found. Or then Sol c after all, because humans may have identified Venus or Mars as a planet (or falsely identified Luna or Sol as one) before they realized Earth was one, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Warrick]

ok, that just made my head spin a litte.. it sounds like there is no real process in terms of suns vs planets etc. It's a name that was given based on the astronomers point of view at that time?

 

[XCV330]

ok, that just made my head spin a litte.. it sounds like there is no real process in terms of suns vs planets etc. It's a name that was given based on the astronomers point of view at that time?

The first exoplanet was not officially discovered until 1992. Now there are over 4100 known exoplanets.
There are proposals for a naming conventions with the IAU, but the Trek thing of putting a Roman numeral after the star isn't employed.

at the moment they are given an alphabetical letter in order of discovery after their parent star name (modified in case of multi-star systems) the letter does not necessarily imply the order of the planets.

 

[Ronald Held]

Perhaps if humans or Starfleet Discovered a system , the planets would be named I,II,etc. If someone else's designator was used, you get something different.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Yeah, in a real sense naming planets is almost as arbitrary as naming people. It might be easier to name planets after their stars, that's not always the case especially in systems with more than one star. The planet Epsilon Ceti B II may be more commonly known as just "Risa," for example.

 

[Ronald Held]

Would anyone care if new planet names in Picard used the current IAU naming convention?

 

[Mysterion]

Would anyone care if new planet names in Picard used the current IAU naming convention?

I'm sure that would almost certainly piss someone of in a very irrational sort of way. "They have know respect for cannon and thare rapping my childhoud!"

 

[Christopher]

In this case (above) Acamar III is referencing the 3rd planet from the sun, I assume the star/sun is called Acamar?

Acamar is the traditional name for the real star Theta Eridani. It's a long tradition in science fiction to put planets around real stars -- Deneb IV, Rigel VII, Regulus II, Omicron Ceti III, that sort of thing. The problem is that the stars we give names to are generally the brightest ones in the sky, meaning they're usually the biggest and hottest and least capable of supporting habitable planets (because the hotter a star is, the shorter its lifespan -- or because they're multiple or variable stars). So it's kind of an outdated trope these days.

 

[publiusr]

I've always liked the formal name of 47 Ursae Majoris--- Chalawan for the star and Taphao Thong and Taphao Kaew for two of the planets (b and c, respectively).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_and_planetary_systems_in_fiction#47_Ursae_Majoris

It has been theorized that light reflections and infrared emissions from 47 UMa b, along with tidal influence, could warm any moons in orbit around it to be habitable, despite the planet being outside the normally accepted habitable zone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/47_Ursae_Majoris_b

Maybe even some furred creatures to fight against the cold?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/96726.Spacepaw

Ursae Majoris indeed. So Dilbia is a moon after all

 

[Christopher]

I didn't know they were naming exoplanets now.

 

[diankra]

I'm sure that would almost certainly piss someone of in a very irrational sort of way. "They have know respect for cannon and thare rapping my childhoud!"

Why should there not be multiple names for planets?. Like Earth/Terra/Sol 3/lots of names in other languages...
In Trek, it's likely that Vulcans and Klingons, etc, named our star when it was just a light in their skies...

 

[Christopher]

Why should there not be multiple names for planets?. Like Earth/Terra/Sol 3/lots of names in other languages...
In Trek, it's likely that Vulcans and Klingons, etc, named our star when it was just a light in their skies...

Sol isn't that bright a star, really... I think I read once that it wouldn't be visible to the naked human eye beyond about 80 light years. Which means Vulcans could see it, but Klingons, maybe not. At least, it probably wouldn't be bright enough in the Qo'noS sky to warrant more than a catalog number or the equivalent of a Bayer designation.

 

[diankra]

Sol isn't that bright a star, really... I think I read once that it wouldn't be visible to the naked human eye beyond about 80 light years. Which means Vulcans could see it, but Klingons, maybe not. At least, it probably wouldn't be bright enough in the Qo'noS sky to warrant more than a catalog number or the equivalent of a Bayer designation.

Even a catalogue number would be another 'name'.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Archer IV from "Yesterday's Enterprise" is somehow one of two planets named for Jonathan Archer as per "In a Mirror, Darkly".

So while real-life it's starname/starname I, II, III etc. Trek's version can't be so logical.

Most likely, the writers didn't understand it.

 

[Christopher]

Archer IV from "Yesterday's Enterprise" is somehow one of two planets named for Jonathan Archer as per "In a Mirror, Darkly".

So while real-life it's starname/starname I, II, III etc. Trek's version can't be so logical.

Presumably the star system is named Archer and its planets are numbered as usual.

 

[BK613]

Actually, real life isn't naming exoplanets I, II, II, etc., except in fiction.
IAU naming conventions (explained in detail here) assign lower case letters, starting with b, to exoplanets orbiting a star in the order of their discovery, not their position relative to the star. Take the star 55 Cancri for example.
The order of discovery was b, c, d, e, and f, obviously, but the order from the star is e, b, c, f, d.
(Image showing the four inner planets of 55 Cancri compared to the Solar System)

edit: fixed an awkward sentence.