Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Name this!

Ever hear those radio commercials that invite you to "name a star after somebody"? So...okay, if we go with the premise that this is real, I have one question. Do the astronomers and scientists who actually DEAL with stars and space on a regular basis seriously have to adopt this naming process? Can you imagine an emergency someday at NASA where one astronomer yells something like "LOOK!! A comet!! Heading straight for us!". "Where where!" shouts his buddy. Then the first one goes "Look, in the telescope,...see that bright object in the sky right by Iben Poopen and to the left of Mybalz Itch?".