Doctor Who Fans petition to Name new planet Gallifrey.

[aceplace57]

Beats the heck out of something as mind numbing and boring as HD 106906 b. Who the hell can remember that name? What happened to interesting names like Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune? Somebody had a sense of humor with Uranus. Science needs some creativity.

Petition to name new planet Gallifrey

Dr Who fans start petition to name newly-found planet 'Gallifrey'

The petition, which was started by Australian fan Sam Menhennet, calls for the International Astronomical Union to rename the planet in honour of Doctor Who’s 50th Birthday.

‘Doctor Who is legendary, award winning, record breaking, and global, and this planet deserves something special and supernatural as its name,’ he said.

‘How better to honour its existence than by dubbing it the home planet of our beloved time travelling alien, ‘The Doctor’?’

[njtt]

I am still hoping they will revive the tradition of naming dwarf planets after Disney dogs, and call the next large Kuiper belt object they discover Goofy.

No! Goofy, no!</Sheldon>

[Chronos]

There are thousands of exoplanets known. Why this particular one? Is it part of Who canon that Gallifrey is a particularly large gas giant?

[Jragon]

@Chronos

There are thousands of exoplanets known. Why this particular one? Is it part of Who canon that Gallifrey is a particularly large gas giant?

It’s probably just the timing of the discovery, the 50th anniversary was only a couple weeks ago. It’s probably also due to the reported “impossible” nature of the planet.

[aceplace57]

This comment from Sam is all I’ve found. Also it’s the 50th anniversary of the show and fans wanted to do something special.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/9505050/Dr-Who-fan-petition-to-name-planet-Gallifrey

Sam Menhennet has launched a petition on change.org asking the International Astronomical Union to change the name of a newly discovered planet to Gallifrey, the name of the birthplace of the wandering Time Lord.

Sam says the artist’s image of the planet - believed to be 11 times the size of Jupiter - that he spotted online instantly made him think of Gallifrey, despite the fact that precise details of the fictional planet in the long-running BBC series are hard to come by.

“I’m not really sure how big it is,” Sam says. “But I know there’s an orange glow to it.”

[JerrySTL]

How about Skaro?

[Incubus]

groan :rolleyes: Are we seriously naming planets after British sci fi shows? Are we going to petition them to rename Mimas to Death Star?