Do any of the new extrasolar planets have names?

On Wed, 30 Sep 1998, Ken wrote:

> Do any of the new planets have names? Any info on them for a grade 8 =
> student's project? Thanks.

Hello,

A friend of mine has a web site summarizing the known planets outside our
solar system, and offering links to information that would probably be
useful for a project. The site is:
http://etacha.as.arizona.edu/~eem/exo.html

None of the new planets have interesting names. So far, they are being
named after the parent star and given a letter (starting with b). For
example, 51 Peg b is the planet orbitting the star 51 Peg (so named
because it is the 51st catalogued star in the constellation Pegasus).
The star itself is given the letter a, and so is actually 51 Peg a.
With more planets being discovered all the time, it is difficult to name
them all with accepted names (names have to be approved by the
International Astronomical Union to be official), and naming them after
the parent star helps astronomers keep all the planets straight.

Hope this helps, and thanks for writing!

Sincerely,

Kurtis Williams

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