Hubble finds another blue planet! It needs a name — if we keep with the mythological gods and goddesses and demons and whatnot convention, we’re gonna run out of deities awful quick. There is however a one big complication with moving there, beyond it’s 63 light-year distance:
Earlier observations have reported evidence for scattering of blue light on the planet. The latest Hubble observation confirms the evidence. If seen directly, this planet would look like a deep blue dot, reminiscent of Earth’s color as seen from space. That is where the comparison ends.
On this turbulent alien world, the daytime temperature is nearly 2000° Fahrenheit (1100° Celsius), and it possibly rains glass — sideways — in howling, 4,500 mph (7,250 km/h) winds. The cobalt blue color comes not from the reflection of a tropical ocean as it does on Earth, but rather a hazy, blow-torched atmosphere containing high clouds laced with silicate particles. Silicates condensing in the heat could form very small drops of glass that scatter blue light more than red light.
I hereby nominate the name Blueglass for this world. What do you think? Got something better?
SO COOL!
The Universe: weirder than you thought it was since 13,800,000,000 BC.
Got something better?
How about FuckNo ?
“Blue Ball”
but that is irreverent.
how about “george”
The Real Big Blue Marble?
I can just hear the grandfathers on that planet… “In my day, we had to walk to school uphill both ways in 2000 degree weather… and it was raining glass!”
Horrible and blue…how about Avatar?
Seaglass has a nice ring to it, though similar to Blueglass.
If I were going to name it after a person, though, I’d name it Clement’s World. After science-fiction author Hal Clement, who gave us Iceworld, Mission of Gravity, and The Nitrogen Fix.
I suggest the name Bristol, as in the folks who are famous for blown blue glass.
I also suggest that, assuming humanity, or its replacement, lives so long, we will be using this planet to remove icky stuff from the exterior of our spacecraft. Yes, you could use pretty much any star, but Bristol leaves behind a very pretty, and non-stick, coating of cobalt blue glass.
To keep in style with the mythical names, is there already a planet named Yahweh?
I actually like Blueglass. Straight and to the point.
Blueglass is seconded by me.
Definitely a good straightforward descriptive name that sums it up well and I wish we’d name these newfound extrasolar worlds.
Numbers can be so flippin’ hard to remember and so lacking in character especially once they get beyond three figures.
Note that there’s a precedent set already – guess what we call a large part of Western Oz that’s allsandy and hot? See :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sandy_Desert
Guess what you’ll find swimming in Shark Bay too? ;-)