Care to name a planet for NASA?

CAIRO –13 November 2017: Near the far end of our solar system, NASA spotted two very cold, small objects which are either connected to each other or two objects orbiting one another.

New Horizons, NASA’s spacecraft which surveyed Pluto 2 years ago, is set to “flyby” the planet in January 2019. By doing so, the spacecraft will set the record for “visiting the most remote world ever explored by humankind,” according to NASA’s Frontier worlds website. However, the current name given by scientists to the planet is "(486958) 2014 MU69," which is to say the least “unexciting.”

That is why NASA is offering everyone

a chance to come up with a nickname for the planet

and submit it to the website, or to vote for one of the names NASA is already considering. The contest to choose the name will end by the December 1. Notably the voted name will be temporary until a formal name is given to the planet by NASA after the flyby, according to Time’s website.

Some of the names which NASA is considering and has put up for vote are: “Año Nuevo” which means new year in Spanish, “Tangotango Tawhaki” which are the names of the Maori creation goddess and her husband, and “Pharos” which was the lighthouse of ancient Alexandria and its library.


NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Alex Parker - Wikimedia commons