Daily Archives: 01/08/2010

Official names of stars and planets

If you’ve ever wondered what the conventions are for naming new stars, planets and other astronomical objects, then the IAU has a guide to most things here, except for stars, which have obviously found their way into many catalogs before the 1922 inception of the International Astronomical Union in Rome, so a note on star names (specifically why there’s no point ‘buying’ one) is here.