Information and Disclaimer

on the Naming of the planet Zqyrax

September 9, 2001

Although the names NGC 4203 (a galaxy, 3.2 million parsecs or 10.4 million light years away from Earth) and V12 (one of the brightest individual stars in the galaxy NGC 4203, 10 million times brighter than our own Sun) are real names, the name Zqyrax is fictitious. 

The naming convention used in the title is fictitious as well, the format being as follows:

[Galaxy] : [Star or star system (and/or solar system name)] : [Planet]

(NGC 4203:V12:Zqyrax)

Though this naming convention gives it an official appearance and, I hope, an air or flavor of authenticity, this naming device is in fact nothing more than an emulation of the basic internet naming convention, (something-dot-something-dot-something) in this case the delimiters being colons instead of dots or periods.  In actual fact, however, there is no actual naming convention recognized or currently used in the naming of extra-solar planets.

The following is an official quote from the IAU (International Astronomical Union) regarding the naming of planets discovered outside our solar system:

In response to frequent questions about plans to assign actual names to extra-solar planets, the IAU sees no need and has no plan to assign names to these objects at the present stage of our knowledge. Indeed, if planets are found to occur very frequently in the Universe, a system of individual names for planets might well rapidly be found equally impracticable as it is for stars, as planet discoveries progress.