Newly discovered exoplanets are given snicker-worthy names

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Newly discovered exoplanets are given snicker-worthy names

24 Sextanis is a subgiant star, located in the constellation Sextans, orbited by two recently identified planets. They are called Sex b and Sex c. One of the discoverers of planet Sex c is a Caltech professor named John Johnson.

Why don’t exoplanets get real names? From National Geographic:

Sometimes newer stars get named after the instruments or techniques used to find them, giving us exoplanets with names such as OGLE-TR-56b.That’s thanks to the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE), which was designed to study variability in starlight. The issue has led some people to suggest we should formalize a naming convention for exoplanets based on mythology, although at 473 planets and counting, we could run out of Greco-Roman names real fast. Still others have said to save the proper names for habitable, Earthlike worlds.

Still.. Sex C. Uh huh huh huh.

Via